External hard drive is not accessible

[Neo10]

Hi,
I have external usb hard drive (SATA) 1Tb. It was working flawlessly before. But now I can't access it. However, my laptop recognizes it and can be seen in 'My Computer, Device Manager and Disk management'.
What should I do?
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[CKWD]

Hello Neo10!

This is quite unpleasant of a situation you have.
Is this an external device by design or an internal hard drive connected via USB?
This could be a driver issue. Make sure you have updated the drivers for the device and the USB drivers of your PC.
Also, has the drive always shown with this drive number (I: ) or is this a first? This may actually be another device or slot of the PC and your drive may actually not be seen at all. Connect it to another computer and see what happens.

CK_WD

 

[dsperber]

Looks like you're going through an external USB-to-SATA converter/adapter or external enclosure?

Could you be having a hardware failure in that adapter? Not the drive itself?

Perhaps you could try an alternate external adapter, like this one from Kingwin http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817990027 (USB 3.0 compatible). That would point to either your current external adapter or the drive itself as being the source of the problem.

 

[Neo10]

Hello Neo10!

This is quite unpleasant of a situation you have.
Is this an external device by design or an internal hard drive connected via USB?
This could be a driver issue. Make sure you have updated the drivers for the device and the USB drivers of your PC.
Also, has the drive always shown with this drive number (I: ) or is this a first? This may actually be another device or slot of the PC and your drive may actually not be seen at all. Connect it to another computer and see what happens.

CK_WD

Hi CK_WD,

Thanks for reply.

- It is ''PACKARD BELL Carbon'' external hard drive - 1 TB, connected via USB (external power supply needed).
- I have updated USB drivers of my laptop but it doesn't solve the issue.
- Though my laptop never asked specific driver for this device in the past, I tried to search the drivers for device on Google, but did not find.
- Yes, this is the only and correct drive that always shown with this drive number (I: ).
- I have also tried to connect it to another laptop but still got the same error.

I have lot of important data in it.
​

 

[Neo10]

Looks like you're going through an external USB-to-SATA converter/adapter or external enclosure?

Could you be having a hardware failure in that adapter? Not the drive itself?

Perhaps you could try an alternate external adapter, like this one from Kingwin (USB 3.0 compatible). That would point to either your current external adapter or the drive itself as being the source of the problem.

Hi dsperber,

Thanks for reply.
- Yes it is ''PACKARD BELL Carbon'' external hard drive - 1 TB, connected via USB (external power supply needed).
- The hard drive is having small LED light and it was blinking with little bit feeling like something is rotating inside the device. And now that LED light is still turn on/off but does not blink anymore.

 

[CKWD]

Hi again Neo10!

I would suggest you this link from the Microsoft support page, when hardware devices are not working or are not detected in Windows:
Hardware devices are not working or are not detected in Windows

To make sure that your external drive doesn't have or has any drivers, you should check the manufacturer's site, in this case – Choose your country | Packard Bell.

But since your drive has shown the same error on another computer, it's probably the device that's failed.

If you are not able to fix the issue with the two steps from above, your best chance for your information would be a Data Recovery Company.

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[Shimshom]

Sounds like the power controller has gone south and you can remove the actual hard drive inside the enclosure and connect it direct as an internal hard drive if you have access to a desktop and either use it as a secondary drive or just get the data on it transferred to another medium. Getting a data recovery company as CKWD said is also an option but an expensive one. Have a look here for how to remove hard drives from their enclosure and even though it's a different one then yours they are mostly very similar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCS8ui-6WZY