i can't see my hdd on win explorer but it is on taskbar

Hello and welcome Jethro mate some more system specs please System Info - See Your System Specs

Now run this
Using HW Info general components
Download HW Info and pick the right bit version - HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download - (or copy and paste this site into the search bar) If you do not need the running information in the smaller right hand panel close it. In the left hand window click on the + for the individual device groupings and they will open out to the various components.
Go on opening out further until you get to the device itself. click on it and it will highlight. In the right hand window there will be a very detailed description of that device as in brand, speeds model number etc etc These are very detailed and are just what is needed for searching for drivers etc.
See my pic for an example - in this I have opened out one my components and then highlighted one of the one you need and you can see the detail.

Another tool that might be of help is this Free Partition Manager for Window PC | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition see if this picks it up and it can also be used for many functions on drives. Have included a pic for yur info

Jethro no need to call me sir mate - John is the name and it is ok .
Now the spin rate doesn't show on mine because it is a Solid State Drive and not a spinner - physical spinning disk inside.
To find the spin rate all you neeed to do is Google the drive itself ie http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/COM..._datasheet.pdf you will see the spin rate is 5400rpm

Now just what you want to do and can do I am not really sure so do you want to reinstall or what??

Hello jethro27! Hi ICit2lol!

As I understand you want to get your external drive working again even if that costs the information on it?

Did you try to properly initialize it? Right clicking on the space in Disk Management and selecting Initialize?

I would suggest you to see if the disk will appear in the diskpart menu:

1. After connecting the external drive and powering it on, go to Start → Run → type “cmd.exe” and hit Enter
2. Type “diskpart” in the command prompt
3. Type “List disk” in the prompt, which will give you a list of the disks that are attached to the system
4. Type “select disk A”, where A is actually the number of the certain external hard drive given in the readout of the "list disk" prompt. If you're not sure which is the external drive, type "detail disk" in the prompt. This will give you more details of the disk hardware. If you have the wrong disk, simply retype "select disk A" at the prompt with another disk number.
5. Type “create partition primary”, which will set up the entire disk as one volume. If you want to have two or more partitions, create them by adding the desired size of the disk after the create-command in Megabytes.

Make sure that before plugging the drive in you make sure that at least the USB port and cable are both working well!

Hope this will show your drive and you'll be able to partition it!

Good luck!

CK_WD

Hi jethro tull oops ...27 :)

Post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management as it exists now..

Also tell us whether you want to recover the data on the drive or you just want to format the drive and use it again.

You only said you tried to initialise the disk. Did you cancel that screen and abandoned that or did it give an error message and did not initialise? ( I am not sure what happened and that is why I am asking for a fresh screenshot now.)

If it gave an error message what was it?

Is your Toshiba 500GB external drive still under warranty?

If you want to format the drive that will result losing all data then go ahead with what CKWD has suggested.

Otherwise, I would like to have a look at the contents of the first sector and see what changes have taken place in the MBR Code/Partition Table in it. Of course its going to be a small exercise.

It all depends on what your intention is.

Hi again jethro27,

I understand, diskpart hasn't helped, that's unfortunate. Still, could you please provide the screenshots that @jumanji asked for? They could really help.

Also, we understand you tried to initialize it and nothing happened, as you say, but we need something more than that. Just like @jumanji asked, did it give out some kind of error/message when you tried to initialize it? Did you try to initialize it, wait and then canceled? What did you do and what happened exactly step by step?

CK_WD