Cannot access 1TB External Hard drive (USB) Crashing windows explorer

[Pimmalage]

Hello i'm kinda a newbie to anything to do with external hard drives and/or Corruption.
But my external hard drive recently has become unusable, When it's plugged it only shows "Local Disk ( G: )" on My computer, with no drive size/space left. (Image to explain, Yes i know My primary drive is full, but i have no external to backup on. Here)

Any interaction with it will cause windows explorer to crash, and forcing to restart windows explorer, looking around the web i see no real fix i feel like trying, as there's around 600GB of data on there i wish to keep.
So i thought it'd be best to get a hopeful fix specific to my problem just to make sure i don't mess-up and lose the data.

The Harddrive itself is a "Hitachi 1tb External Hard Drive", For what model i have no idea, but looks exactly like this image: Here
It's a Dual power-source external hard drive connected by USB 2.0.

the only real problem i had with the drive prior to this problem was i had a little notification when it was connected asking me to scan for errors, i was kinda worried about the possible corruption so i went ahead and left it to scan the 2 billion odd bytes from what i remember , took ages to do but the problem was still there, I saw no issue with any of the files on there after pressing the "continue without scanning" so i just thought it might have been a bug, as the drive seemed normal.

But then after a while this problem occurred and since hasn't been fixed, i can't seem to even format it as right-clicking the drive has the same outcome as double-clicking.


I'd like to thank anyone willing to take the time and help me out with this problem, and try to keep things simple if possible, don't know much about Hard drives.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Lets have a look at this in Disk Management - can you open it and attach a screen capture image of it please?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Pimmalage]

Hi,

Lets have a look at this in Disk Management - can you open it and attach a screen capture image of it please?

Regards,
Golden

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated, But a tiny update, i've had the hard drive connected a while now, and around 10-15 minutes ago my hard drive spun up (audibly) and a prompt came up asking to scan the harddrive for errors, or continue without scanning, i started scanning.
It's nowhere near done. (Here)

however i opened up disc manager as asked and this is it: Here

Looks as if the drive is empty, i can confirm it's not there was around 300-400 GB Free.
Edit: Just to explain a little more the drive has been connected around 1hr 30Mins Before that popped up.

 

[carwiz]

One thing you need to do is get that drive letter (Y) and the "Active" off the System Reserved partition of the C drive.
Ops, forgot the link: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

How was the USB drive formatted to begin with?

 

[Pimmalage]

One thing you need to do is get that drive letter (Y) and the "Active" off the System Reserved partition of the C drive.

How was the USB drive formatted to begin with?

I don't really know what you mean about the system reserve?
Edit: So i don't sound like an idiot i know what it is, just don't know what you want me to do.

But the Drive i think was NTFS, It now displays that on My computer since it has began scanning, Along with the Drive name ( Mike's Harddrive G: )

 

[carwiz]

The System Reserved space on your C: drive is marked "Active" and has a drive letter. Remove the drive letter Y: and deactivate the partition. Do NOT try to remove the partition, just deactivate it. (Follow the added link.) Leaving the SR active can cause boot problems.

Restart your system to make sure it reboots.

THEN, we'll look at drive G:

 

[Pimmalage]

The System Reserved space on your C: drive is marked "Active" and has a drive letter. Remove the drive letter Y: and deactivate the partition. Do NOT try to remove the partition, just deactivate it. (Follow the added link.) Leaving the SR active can cause boot problems.

Restart your system to make sure it reboots.

THEN, we'll look at drive G:

Ah alright Well i don't really want to restart until this scanning of the hard drive G: is done (One mentioned in Previous posts. (Currently at 310 files processed, Looks to be around an 8th of the way)
Is this system reserve active related to my problem, Or just a general problem, because i don't think i've ever messed with it since first boot.

 

[carwiz]

Something has "messed" with it. Windows 7 doesn't normally assign a Y drive nor make the reserve active. Only the boot disk C: should be marked active. When a partition is active, Windows will attempt to boot from it. You may (or may not) have a virus or root kit grabbing your system at boot.

Your external drive G: is correct except it should be NTFS under File System. That's why I asked how it was formated to begin with.

 

[Pimmalage]

Something has "messed" with it. Windows 7 doesn't normally assign a Y drive nor make the reserve active. Only the boot disk C: should be marked active. When a partition is active, Windows will attempt to boot from it. You may (or may not) have a virus or root kit grabbing your system at boot.

Your external drive G: is correct except it should be NTFS under File System. That's why I asked how it was formated to begin with.

It is displayed on My computer as NTFS, But not on drive manager, for some reason, possibly to do with the scan.

And you said to follow the link attached?
You hadn't linked it, And i'll have to do it after this scan, probably going to take a number of hours.

 

[carwiz]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Make sure your C: drive is marked Active before you reboot. It's the one that has "Boot" under Status. You should be able to do that from Disk Manager.

Here's a snip of my drives for comparison. And yeah, the scan could cause the missing NTFS. It could be trying to determine the type.

 

[Pimmalage]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Make sure your C: drive is marked Active before you reboot. It's the one that has "Boot" under Status. You should be able to do that from Disk Manager.

Here's a snip of my drives for comparison. And yeah, the scan could cause the missing NTFS. It could be trying to determine the type.

I've marked the C: As active, but my SR is still marked at "System" as yours is not.
How would i go about making it not system, or would this be fixed along with the restart?
Screenshot of Disc manager now

 

[carwiz]

Hmmmmmmm. I didn't notice that before. That's usually set at OS load. I wonder if that has something to do with the way HP loads their system. Are you running a retail version of Windows 7 or was it loaded when you bought the system?

I'm having second thoughts now. Perhaps more help is needed before going any further. I'll post a help request and see what comes up.

 

[Pimmalage]

Hmmmmmmm. I didn't notice that before. That's usually set at OS load. I wonder if that has something to do with the way HP loads their system. Are you running a retail version of Windows 7 or was it loaded when you bought the system?

I'm having second thoughts now. Perhaps more help is needed before going any further. I'll post a help request and see what comes up.

Well i have yet to restart, and i haven't messed with anything since first boot, So if anything's changed probably some sort of virus, or s side effect from some program, either way i can defiantly say i haven't changed anything there.

 

[carwiz]

I posted a help request so we'll have to wait on that.

Getting back to the original problem. I re-read your posts and you mention you "heard the drive spin up".
Does the drive show up in Device Manager? If so, check the drive properties and see if you have Write Caching enabled. Having this set and not "ejecting" the drive before turning it off can cause corrupt drive problems.

 

[gregrocker]

System Reserved partition should remain set Active since it hosts the System Boot files which boot Win7, as signified by the System flag on it. It takes more to move them to C than just moving the Active flag, and there's no good reason to do that anyway.

In Carwiz' screenshot his System Active partition has been decommissioned as it has no System Active flags. This may have been the result of a repair gone awry. It's okay the way it is now.

As to the external HD back up the data from it and run a Disk Check on it with both boxes checked as shown in tutorial.

If there are further problems I would either plug it in internally to a laptop to run the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test extended CD scan on it, or from USB run Partition Wizard Partition surface test.

If it tests good then wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command since code in the boot sector could explain how it is messing with Win7, then repartition it in Disk Mgmt: Partition or Volume - Create New

 

[Pimmalage]

I posted a help request so we'll have to wait on that.

Getting back to the original problem. I re-read your posts and you mention you "heard the drive spin up".
Does the drive show up in Device Manager? If so, check the drive properties and see if you have Write Caching enabled. Having this set and not "ejecting" the drive before turning it off can cause corrupt drive problems.

Okay just to make sure you're up-to-date on what's happened.

I connected the drive to my USB before creating the thread, the drive has a blue processing light on it (Flickers when it's reading/writing data)
I saw it still had the previous problem, no autoplay no nothing showed up, showed no amount of space on My computer and was labeled "Local Disc G:" When i know i've renamed it "Mike's harddrive".

So i created this thread, drive still plugged and light on (Not flickering)
Then after the thread was created it started flickering and making noises like a processor would, it then popped up on the computer, giving me the option to scan the drive for errors or continue without scanning.

I scanned the drive (Which is still running, and probably will for a long time: Progress

Sorry for being over-overcautious with this, i have things i want to keep on the drive.

And to answer your question, It has two devices on there, One is "USB" and one is "ATA", I only have one external drive connected, and this being a laptop, not sure if my Local disc should show.
Both are on these policies: Here

 

[Dave76]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Make sure your C: drive is marked Active before you reboot. It's the one that has "Boot" under Status. You should be able to do that from Disk Manager.

Here's a snip of my drives for comparison. And yeah, the scan could cause the missing NTFS. It could be trying to determine the type.

I've marked the C: As active, but my SR is still marked at "System" as yours is not.
How would i go about making it not system, or would this be fixed along with the restart?
Screenshot of Disc manager now

I agree with Greg's post above, do not re-boot with C: marked as 'Active', it will not be able to boot.
Mark C: as 'Inactive'
Then mark your System Reserved (Y) as 'Active'.

Your boot files are in the System Reserved partition, when it is marked 'Active' your system will boot.
Best to leave your disk setup the way it was originally.

 

[Pimmalage]

As to the external HD back up the data from it and run a Disk Check on it with both boxes checked as shown in tutorial.

This is the method that has been running, But i haven't backed up the data as i cannot access the drive, even if i was able to, i don't have a drive to fit the 500 odd GB of data. I assume it's going to take forever, roughly around 7 hrs now, not even close to finishing.

As for the other methods not sure as of yet, i shall wait till this is finished.

Also thanks to Dave and Greg, i shall leave System reserved as was, good job i hadn't booted.

 

[Dave76]

You're welcome.

Let us know the results of the Disk Check.

 

[gregrocker]

Marking another partition on the same HD Active will mark the other Inactive automatically since only one can be Active per HD.

See if you can see data via Disk Mgmt Explore on the partition. If not running Disk Check may scramble some of the data even if it can repair the HD. If this can't be risked try data recovery first using a program like Recuva - Features