External disc is not detected by any computer

[DR M]

Hi, Donna.

I went today to another store, and I asked for help. They tested my disc with an external enclosure, but unfortunately the computer did not recognised it. They were surprised, because they could hear it working. Although they told me to leave it to the technicians, I prefered to bring it home and try to find my photos and videos from my devices. I won't find all I want, but it is better from nothing. I also bought two new external disks. I don't think that they will die the same day!!!

P.S. Do you want some more ... cats? I have 8 cats and I want to find for them a good family!  :dance:

[DonnaB]

Hi Panos,

They tested my disc with an external enclosure, but unfortunately the computer did not recognised it.

I am surprised myself. If I were a bit closer to you, I'd say bring it over and I'd see what I could do. Obviously if they heard it working it should be accessible via Start > Computer > Devices with Removable Storage. Strange.  Not sure what to say. I want to ask if they tried a different USB port, but I'm sure they would have tried that.

The new external disks you purchased. I wonder..... what is the possibility of exchanging the bad HDD with one of the new ones and trying to access it in that manner. I've never tried anything like that, but I am never one to give up hope until I run out of options to try.

P.S. Do you want some more ... cats? I have 8 cats and I want to find for them a good family!  :dance:

:laughing: NO! I have 13 in my care right now. Bless their little hearts. 6 are mine. 7 are fosters. 5 of those 13 are special needs cats. Not going to be easy to place them in a furever home. The youngest one (Jinx - 4-5 months old) is driving me nuts. I can't even wash dishes without him sticking his little paws in the stream of water and splashing me. He's really into the bubbles from the dish soap as well. Crazy kitty! He's going to make a great companion for some lonely person as soon as the shelter has room for him. I'm sure he'll be adopted in a heart beat due to his personality.

Are all your cats spayed or neutered? If not, are there any animal foundations/shelters in your area that offer low cost spay/neuter. The ones I volunteer for either do it for free (for the ones I foster) or the cost is a mere $25 USD's including shots if I decide to keep the cat/kitten for my own. No more! 6 is too many. I need a farm with a cat enclosure fence.

[DR M]

Good morning Corrine, good morning Landzdown Forum!

My univercity teacher experiences a similar problem with mine, but with an important difference: her external disc icon is shown in task bar (we can even click on it and choose safe remove)! The problem is that is not shown in My computer. From Control Panel -> disc management, the disc is there but cannot be initialised and if so, an error occurs. I told her to go to the store I went, and they told her that the disc is dead (they tried the external enclosure). But why??? Is this possible? I click on the device icon and it says that it works properly... Is there anything we can do to recover the documents in it?

[Digerati]

She took the disk with her (I have out of its case) and without trying anything, only by seing it, they made their conclusion. Here, you know, we live in the era of easy format and even more easier replacement of anything seems to have something wrong. I am very disappointed.

I would be disappointed too.

Frankly, I do not like drive enclosures that connect via USB. They just do not seem to connect reliably, or consistently. And sadly, USB 3.0 was supposed to fix those issues, but instead, seem to have added more. :( So if an enclosure is necessary, I prefer one that connects via eSATA or is networked via Ethernet or wifi.

That said, my preference is to install all drives inside the computer via an interface designed exclusively for drives - that is SATA or EIDE (PATA).

For testing purposes, I don't recommend using another enclosure, unless eSATA. Otherwise, you don't remove possible USB issues from the equation - which is necessary while troubleshooting. So better yet, especially since you already pulled the drive, I recommend installing it into another computer as a secondary (NOT boot) drive. Depending on the drive, there are inexpensive (under $10) adapters to connect a 2.5 inch drive in a PC. Then see if you can copy off the data.

[DR M]

Hello Digerati, and thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, my external disc is now dead...

My teacher's disc, although, has signs that give hope. I can see the green icon in the right corner of task bar, as well as in the device manager, but not in My computer. The problem is that it cannot be initialised, and if so, I get an error for incorrect function.

As I am not familiar with hard discs issues, I would like to have some more explanation about what to do, about this second hard disc. Is there a way to recover the data?

[Digerati]

Not if you cannot read it. There are data recovery services where you can take the drive and they will perform "forensic" analysis on the drive. But this process can cost many $100s or more. So the data needs to be worth it.

[Corrine]

Thank you, Digerati, for responding to my request to take a look at the problem that Panos' teacher has.  :rose:

[Aaron Hulett]

Does the drive show up at all in Disk Management, and if so, does it recognize there's a partition (or more than one if that was the case), and if it does, the file system (NTFS/FAT/RAW)?

Start | Run | type diskmgmt.msc and press enter/OK.

Screenshot of Disk Management might yield something helpful if you're not sure what to make of what it's telling us.

[Aaron Hulett]

Frankly, I do not like drive enclosures that connect via USB. They just do not seem to connect reliably, or consistently.

Have you tried disabling write caching?

[DR M]

Does the drive show up at all in Disk Management, and if so, does it recognize there's a partition (or more than one if that was the case), and if it does, the file system (NTFS/FAT/RAW)?

Start | Run | type diskmgmt.msc and press enter/OK.

Screenshot of Disk Management might yield something helpful if you're not sure what to make of what it's telling us.

Hi, Aaron.

As I said,

"her external disc icon is shown in task bar (we can even click on it and choose safe remove)! The problem is that is not shown in My computer. From Control Panel -> disc management, the disc is there but cannot be initialised (there is a small arrow looking downwards, and the disc is named as disc 1) and if so, an error occurs. I told her to go to the store I went, and they told her that the disc is dead (they tried the external enclosure).

Isn't this strange??? The disk is there, but cannot be accessed.

[Digerati]

Thank you, Digerati, for responding to my request to take a look at the problem that Panos' teacher has.  :rose:

Sure - just wish I had more to offer but it seems others have touched on all the bases. :(

[DR M]

I thank you all for your replies, especially you, Corrine, for your willingness to help.

So... There is only one thing left!! Puting it in the fridge, as Temmu said. It had no success with my disc, perhaps it will work with this one! Dead is not afraid to be killed! Right?  :muahaha:

[Digerati]

It is very rare and unlikely putting it in the freezer will help. The idea behind it is cold causes matter to contract and the hope is, that contraction will close a microfracture or free seized motor bearings.

The problem is, as soon as you start to use the drive again, it heats up, and heat causes matter to expand.

I have only seen the freezer method work once in over 30 years and that was a very long time ago, and it only provided about 2 minutes of run time - which fortunately, was enough to copy off the 2 critical files the user did not want to lose before the bearings seized again.

Still, if all else has been tried, it is worth a try. But do be careful as condensation will form on the drive when you take it out of the freezer.

[Aaron Hulett]

From Control Panel -> disc management, the disc is there but cannot be initialised

Yeah, not good. I agree with Digerati - either send the drive out for data retrieval or just go without.

[DR M]

So the disc is dead...

Thank you all for your replies.


P.S. Freezing the disc is stupidness.