@
dsperber The format option is
not greyed out so I could do this but there is already stuff on the drive. This would probably be a last resort option. Also, the drive is formatted from the factory as NTFS (for Windows). This isn't the Mac version (no HFS).
Just to clarify...
Your screenshot from Diskmgmt does not show Disk0, which is your "first hard drive" and from what I can deduce contains (a) 100MB "system reserved" partition, (b) 686GB C partition containing Win7, and (c) 11GB D partition for "system recovery" or something from HP. All together this looks like it only adds up to 800GB or so, which is an odd size for a drive. So maybe I'm misreading the partially obscured partition size values. Maybe it's a 1TB drive and there's either unallocated space, or I'm just reading some partial values incorrectly.
It's actually hard to tell precisely, because your screenshot isn't large enough. You really should first maximize the Diskmgmt window and then spread all the horizontal columns so that all the text in each column can be seen and read. Also, in the vertical dimension, you can pull the horizontal separator up from where it is by default, so that more visible area is allocated to the lower "graphic" pane to show more drives. Once everything is really visible (including your THREE hard drives), then take the screenshot.
But it's obvious that only Disk1 (your G drive) and Disk2 (the one you cannot assign a drive letter to, but which shows as ONLINE) are visible in the current screenshot. I really would have liked to have seen all three of your hard drives, and have all of the partitions size numbers and descriptive text in all columns completely visible.
If you can post another shot that's fully readable, that would be helpful
But... if you look at your DISK2 which shows that it is online (in the lower graphic pane area) but does not show up listed (in the upper details pane), you'll notice that the cross-hatched space does not show NTFS. If the drive had been formatted with NTFS it would have shown NTFS... as your other DISK0 (when you show it to us in a new screenshot) and DISK1 partitions show.
Now I suppose there may be another electrical or cabling or hardware explanation for why this ONLINE drive is not getting a drive letter assigned, but for sure it would need to have an NTFS file system on it in order for that to be possible. I see no NTFS in that graphic, and that bothers me.
Now it's generally true that when a drive or partition IS recognized and doesn't get a drive letter assigned, it usually still shows up in the upper pane... just with no "NTFS" in the "file system" column. In your case, you don't even have a row in the upper pane showing the drive at all and with no NTFS file system in that cell of that row. You have nothing in the upper pane. That's directly tied to the "needs to be refreshed" message, because Diskmgmt clearly WANTS to populate a row in the upper pane for this DISK2 drive that it clearly sees is present, but can't figure it out.
And yet, Windows sees the drive and considers it "online"... and presents its size in the lower pane (as a 1.5TB drive before whatever formatting is on it), although it shows no recognizable file system for that drive. That is why I suggested the right-click FORMAT approach, to plant NTFS on it. I honestly am dubious that it is NTFS and not HFS.
I agree, you will obviously lose whatever data is on that drive with FORMAT. I didn't know you had data on it that you didn't want to lose.
Anyway, this is certainly an odd combination of clues. But then I've never worked with an eSATA to USB situation.
Maybe it's nothing more than a cable/adapter/hardware problem, but it definitely looks very strange.
