Error message X:\ is not accessible the device is not ready

Hi There,

i just plugged in my external drive to play a game on steam but it's telling the file is empty (as seen in the screenshots below) it's a 2TB drive that is nearly full. i have tried "dskchk" with admin right but the device type is unknown even though in my computer it's says it's NTFS i have tried some of the file recovery programs but they don't work as i think it needs to be in RAW type. steam is the only thing on this drive but it's nearly 2TB so for me to redownload it all will take weeks and weeks and i live in the countryside.

Thanks Jake

CKWD said:

Hello Amaterasu!

This is not pleasant, I agree. :/

What is the make and model of the drive? You say you've tried chkdsk, what exactly did you try with it and what were the results?

I would suggest you safely remove the drive, change its USB cable with a new one, try it on all USB ports available. Go to Disk Management and right click on the drive and change its drive letter. See if that helps. Also, check it on another system. If nothing from this works, go to Device Manager (post a screenshot from there) and uninstall the device, replug it and let it reinstall itself automatically. Check if your USB drivers need updating.

Post back after these with the results, good luck! :)

CK_WD

hi thanks for the reply i have tried what you said do to but now it is RAW formant here is a picture of the drive and from device manager. what do you suggest i do now is there any programs that you think are good for recovering RAW drives?

Try TestDisk for partition recovery

Recover a flash drive turned RAW – Partition Wizard and TestDisk.

That was a good suggestion by ComputerGeek.

I was mulling over your problem off and on since you posted it and was thinking off a few solutions you may try. I had some intuitive feeling a drive cleanup may resolve the issue. But the scene has changed now.

In your first post the drive did appear with a drive letter E: and a drive cleanup - which removes non-existent drives , and the drive letters associated with such non-existent drives and held in Windows registry - could have helped.

But now you say that the drive appears as "RAW" which it was not before. In the circumstances, a Partition Recovery attempt may help. First try Partition Recovery Wizard in Partition Wizard instead of TestDisk. Let us see what info it yields. MiniTool Partition Wizard | Best partition magic alternative for Windows PC and Server

1. For the record, post the Windows Disk Management picture showing your drive as RAW.( Please post a untruncated full screenshot with full information. Follow the guidelines here Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image to hide the Console Tree, Action Pane and adjust the seperators so that all the information can be seen)

2. Next run Partition Recovery Wizard Quick Scan and see what partitions show up. Post the screenshot of Partitions found Window.. Cancel and close PW till I see it and suggest further course of action.

Note: Stop trying other data recovery programs. Wrongly used without an understanding what they do and how they do may make matters worse. It is for this reason I don't want you to straightaway go to TestDisk. We shall use it later if need be but with proper guidance.

just a quick footnote: chkdsk attempts to fix the filesystem. There's no filesystem on a raw drive. Chkdsk isn't available to run on a raw drive. Try jumanji's suggestions for partition recovery

jumanji said:

A corrupt file system (?) can make a drive RAW. In those cases the RAW drive will show up with a drive letter and we can run check disk on the RAW drive. I learnt this from kaktussoft.

We have had atleast two instances when CHKDSK <drive letter:> /f /v /r /x repaired a RAW drive/partition and made the drive accessible.

Now I can see said the blind man. Thanks for the good info and OP support! :)