Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

  1. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
       #1

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions


    I have been using a Seagate Expansion 2TB external drive plugged into my ASUS RT-N56U router streaming movies to my WD TV Live. Recently movie streaming stopped working. I tried connecting the drive to my laptop and recorded what happened below.

    1. Plugged power cable into Seagate 2TB drive. After about 10s plugged USB cable into Windows 7 laptop.
    2. Could not see the drive in File Manager, Device Manager or Disk Management.
    3. After a while the system hung however this was resolved by unplugging the power cable from the Seagate 2TB drive.
    4. With the USB cable still connected to the laptop, I plugged in the power cable back into the Seagate 2TB drive.
    5. This time I could see the drive in File Manager, Device Manager or Disk Management.
    6. Windows popped up a window and asked me if I wanted to fix the drive which I selected "Scan & fix" and the scan completed in about 10mins but nothing was reported.
    7. In File Manager I could see the first level directory structure but no other sub directories or files could be found.
    8. I also ran testdisk which appeared to have found some read errors but no partitions were found.

    I have attached a file which includes all the relevant screenshots.

    I would really like to recover the files on the drive and any help is appreciated.

    Thanks.
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions Attached Files
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 7,055
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
       #2

    Download and run MiniTools Partition Wizard Home Edition 8.1.1 Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online

    Right Click on your external drive volume and click on Check File System

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-09-08-2014-13-43-49.jpg

    In the ensuing dialog box, select Check and Fix detected errors and Start.

    Let it complete.

    Close Partition Wizard, shut down your computer and remove your external HDD.

    Boot your computer and connect your external HDD.

    Hope that resolves your problem. ( This is what I did when only one DVD ISO folder showed up on my 1 TB drive. I had umpteen BD ISOs and the drive was almost full. After running Partition Wizard File System check, I got back all the ISOs. If I remember correctly Windows Disk Check did not do anything.)

    EDIT: If PW File System check alone does not resolve the problem, follow it up with Windows disk check - fix errors. Again if I remember right it did a good job this time stitching together the fragments and restoring to relevant files.
    Last edited by jumanji; 09 Aug 2014 at 04:15.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks jumanji for the quick response.

    I downloaded and ran PW but it could not detect the USB drive at all. So I power cycled the drive then PW was "Updating partition information, please wait ..." repeatedly (i.e. from 0% to 100% and started from 0% again) for about 15mins.

    Eventually PW completed the update and the USB drive was shown as "Bad Disk".

    When I right clicked the bad disk, ALL options were greyed out and I could not select anything.

    Screenshots are in the attachment.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks.
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions Attached Files
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 7,055
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
       #4

    There is something in the PW screenshots that I do not understand.

    Why all your drives are shown as "others" without a file system and capacity used as "Full"?

    Also please take the screenshots with Windows Snipping Tool or whatever tool you use, as JPG/PNG and upload it to SevenForums servers. Put those attachments in the post so that we can see it directly - like in my post #2..

    Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

    Now please do this:

    1. With only your problem Seagate External drive plugged in, take a screenshot of Windows Disk Management and post.( Please click on "Show/Hide Console Tree" and "Show/Hide Action Pane" icons in that Window to hide those so that we get a full screen view without any truncation.)

    2. Next post a screenshot how the drives look in Partition Wizard.

    Please make sure that there is no truncation and all the info is available.

    For your understanding, I have taken the above screenshots in my system and attached those to this post.

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-10-08-2014-15-00-21.jpg

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-10-08-2014-15-04-43.jpg
    Last edited by jumanji; 10 Aug 2014 at 05:03.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #5

    My laptop is for work hence the drives need to be PGP encrypted, maybe this is the reason why they are shown as others and full in PW.
    1) Screenshot of Disk Management:
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-disk-management-20140810.png
    2) Screenshot of PW:
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-pw-v01-20140810.png

    As you can see the USB drive has now disappeared in PW. So I unplugged the power cable of the USB drive, rebooted the laptop, plugged the power cable back into the USB drive. Windows asked me if I want to "Scan and fix" the drive and I responded yes.
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-windows-check-disk-20140810.png
    However after a while my laptop hung, and did not even respond to Ctrl-Alt-Del. Like last time I unplugged the power cable of the USB drive and the system became responsive again.

    Next I plugged the power cable back in, Windows again asked me to "Scan and fix" the drive. This time I did not choose the option of "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". After about 20mins, the scan completed and the USB drive now appeared in PW.

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-pw-v02-20140810.png
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #6

    I also took another screenshot of Disk Management. This time it showed the USB drive as "Unknown, Not Initialised".
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-disk-management-v2-20140810.png
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 7,055
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
       #7

    For all practical purposes your external drive looks normal in Windows Disk Management on your office laptop.

    However by using your office laptop that has been setup by your administrator modifying the normal features, some unknown layer ( atleast for me :)) has been added.

    As you can see PW has difficulty in seeing your drive and even the drives seen present a screwed up picture.

    You may prefer to do anything that you want to do for troubleshooting and further recommended actions on a normal personal machine - other than your office laptop.

    Please wait to see if someone else can help you deal with this problem in your present setup.

    EDIT: While I was composing this post and posted, I missed your last post which seems to have quickly followed your post #5.Anyway that does not alter anything stated in this post. Pulling out power to the external drive while something is in progress is not good. It can make matters worse. Has it already? I do not know. Anyway better to start from scratch on a normal PC and not on your work laptop.
    Last edited by jumanji; 10 Aug 2014 at 12:46.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #8

    I plugged the USB drive to my home PC which is running Windows 8.1, then rebooted the drive to start from a clean slate.

    Windows detected errors on the drive and tried to fix it but unsuccessful.

    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-scan-fix.png
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-repair-drive-20140811.png
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-error-checking-20140811.png

    Below are the screenshots in Disk Management and PW:

    Disk Management - Expansion Drive E: detected.
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-disk-management-v2-20140811.png

    PW - Expansion Drive E: not detected
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-pw-20140811.png
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 7,055
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
       #9

    1. This may not be relevant to the problem at hand but still let us have this information. What is your 298.09 GB Disk 1? What is your 74.56GB Disk 2 with a System volume in it?

    2. I am really at a loss why PW is not even detecting your external drive while WDM can.

    3. Try repairing the drive again as indicated in the third screenshot and if the same screen appears click on Show Details at the bottom left corner and post a screenshot of what appears. Let us see whether it gives any idea of what is happening in the drive. Most probably it may return many unreadable segments.

    In the meanwhile I will be mulling over it on what further action will be appropriate. Should we run SeaTools for Windows and allow it to check and repair the drive or should we straight away get into data recovery mode, recover whatever data we can and then proceed to straighten out the drive? let me think it over.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 11
    Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #10

    Disk 1 is the primary drive for storing data. Disk 2 is my old system drive (running XP) which has got 2 partitions, which is now replaced by a new system drive (C:\ using SSD running Windows 8.1).

    I tried repairing the drive again, clicked on Show Details and the following appeared which doesn't seem to show anything useful:
    Seagate 2TB external drive - cannot find any partitions-w81-event-viewer-20140811.png
      My Computer


 
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 00:56.
Find Us