500 GB Toshiba Canvio not recognized by computer

Hello!

I have a Toshiba external hard drive which has had some issues lately. It is not recognized in "My Computer" and I am unable to access any of the data on it. In Disk Management it appears under a black bar in the Disk 1 row.

When I try to initialize the drive in Disk Management I get an error saying: (Data error) cyclic redundancy check. I have also tried renaming the drive through DISKPART but that didn't seem to solve anything either.

The attached screencap is what I get in disk management.

This is very frustrating and any help is greatly appreciated!

Hello and welcome trevor mate do you actually have data on that drive?? if so where from because it is showing unallocated??

If it is new drive and no partitions etc then see this Partition or Volume - Extend

Hmm do you really need that password tool mate as most in here will tell you that pre builds always come with what we call bloatware and this is one piece of it. I tried once with a Toshiba laptop to get a fingerprint pass going and spent many hours trying to work out what the dickens was happening so ditched that idea. In fact the Toshiba bloatware was so intrusive I installed new drives to both of them and flipped in an OEM but that was before I knew about this
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

It is an option worth thinking about only back up any data you need fist to an external drive.

You will find the machine will run ten times as fast and no rotten bloat. I think just making the machine Admin password controlled mate is just as good as any other built in stuff plus there are programs if you want to go down that path to password stuff you want to.