Not recognising WD 3 TB USB Drive (sometimes)

Hi

I have a WD My passport 3 TB drive I have been using for backups.
I am having issues with it, sometimes I can plug it in, as I did last night, all files and folders showing and I used macrium reflect and did a backup of my data.
However I look at it this morning and first it shows the drive but shows it as empty, nothing in it, but it is not because I have had this happen before. Then when I tried to open it a message pops up tells me I need to format the drive, which of course I do not do.
Now win7 does not show the drive at all in My computer or computer management.

As said I have had this issue before and then another time it will work but I am both frustrated and worried I will lose all my data.

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

Hi there
normally 3TB drives have to be defined as GPT rather than MBR to use any partition size over 2TB.
Generally no problem with these.

But another solution generally.

1) Switch off the computer completely and disconnect from power for 10 mins.

2) remove ext passport drive from USB slot on computer.

3) boot up again

4) re-connect WD drive to DIFFERENT USB slot on computer.

If this doesn't work then if you can try the disk on another computer.

Also does Macrium have a facility where you can "Mount the backup" as a Virtual drive and use "Explore Backup facility".

Acronis does and it's very useful too. If you still have your data backup then that's good -- shows importance of ALWAYS taking backups AND have backup copies of important data on MORE THAN ONE DEVICE especially as devices get much higher capacities. No point in backing up data and when you need to restore it the device the backup is on is defective. That's why backups should be on more than one device -- 'Nuf Said.

If the backup exists and is readable - then if all else fails - convert disk to GPT, reformat and restore your data to it.



@ Theog - good suggestions in theory but OP says the computer DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THE DEVICE so if accessing the disk is a problem these utilities might not work.

I've found usually loading up a USB bootable WINPE XP system or a Windows 8 Windows to Go system will often display USB disks when W7 has "Lost them" for some reason or other.


Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Funny isn't it but I went out left computer on sleep came back and turned on, plugged drive into usb turned on and its all working. Thing is I know soon it will vanish again.

Incidentally it is a usb 3.0 device but I am using it on USB 2.0 ports, on usb 3.0 prts it does not see it at all.

Jimbo, how do you convert to GPT or indeed see if it is MBR?

Thanks

OnTheRopes said:

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Funny isn't it but I went out left computer on sleep came back and turned on, plugged drive into usb turned on and its all working. Thing is I know soon it will vanish again.

Incidentally it is a usb 3.0 device but I am using it on USB 2.0 ports, on usb 3.0 prts it does not see it at all.

Jimbo, how do you convert to GPT or indeed see if it is MBR?

Thanks

Hi there
look at one of Brink's Tutorials on the W7 Forum here it is.

Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk

Cheers
jimbo

Thank you Jimbo

OK so I followed the tutorial to convert the GPT
However I deleted the volume as stated, but then I have no option to convert to GPT, it does say that a removable disk cannot be converyted and is MBR only, mine is an external drive.

So my only option was to create a simple volume which I did and formatted the disk. However it will only allow me to use 2048GB, there is another 746.49GB wich I can do nothing with, all options except properties are greyed out. Also 2048 and 746 do not make 3TB, so what is going on here?

OK to answer my own question, I guess my motherboard is not ready for 3TB