Solved My Computer cannot detect my Seagate external hard drive 3TB

[Minotaur]

Hi guys,

I've had this 3TB hard drive for about 6 months with no problems.

However, for some reason my computer cannot recognise it any more.

It doesn't come up in My Computer, but it comes up in device manager ( see pic 1) and in disk management (see pic 2)

Alarmingly, I can't even assign a letter or do anything but delete the volume (see pic 3)

I can't find the driver cd to install it but I didn't think this would be a problem as I installed it anyway through the computer. I've searched for about 2 days on this forums and others and still can't find a solution. I hope I can find one here

oh and i forgot to mention, i tried the hard drive on two different computers and it had the same problem there as well.

pic 1

By piraxtiri at 2012-02-24
pic 2

By piraxtiri at 2012-02-24


By piraxtiri at 2012-02-24

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Your images still dont show - can you repost them using the little paperclip icon?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Minotaur]

the pics are up now

 

[Golden]

Hi,

What was on this disk? Did you have MacOS or a variant installed to this disk?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Minotaur]

nope, just movies and music

 

[Golden]

OK. I need a more experienced eye on this...I'll see if I can find someone to have a look at this for you.

I assume you want to avoid format this drive correct?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Minotaur]

yes please, i'm a bit worried because this thread has 300 views or so and no-one has posted

 

[Golden]

Don't worry, we have hundreds of posts ever day, and its just a case of getting the right eye on it.

 

[zigzag3143]

yes please, i'm a bit worried because this thread has 300 views or so and no-one has posted

All you need to do is assign a driver letter to the drive by using a third party app like parigon disk suite (trial is free)

 

[Golden]

OK, I just had an idea. Lets see if this works.

1. Click Start, then in the search box, type cmd. Right-click CMD.exe, and choose to open as administrator.
2. In the CMD windows, type DISKPART, and hit enter.
3. Now type list disk and hit enter. Take a screen capture of the output and post it back here.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Minotaur]

here you are

 

[Minotaur]

yes please, i'm a bit worried because this thread has 300 views or so and no-one has posted

All you need to do is assign a driver letter to the drive by using a third party app like parigon disk suite (trial is free)

how do you do that?

 

[Minotaur]

okay update!!!

thanks to zigzag, i installed paragon and somehow i have changed the format of my hard drive from NTFS to Mac OS (my laptop is a mac)

i think i installed a program that would enable you to not just read but write on the hard drive and that modified the format to mac os

so does that mean all my files from the ntfs are gone? i assume so

for some reason it says there is 3TB available but 1gb is used?

if i format it to NTFS, that means i lose all my information hey?

sorry i'm such a noob, just dont know alot about computers

 

[Golden]

OK. Its probably easier if we use a 3rd party application like Zigzag suggested, to try and assign a name to that disk.

I'm more familiar with a utility called Partition Wizard 7. Download it here, and then install it.

Free Partition Magic alternative. Free Partition Manager Software for Windows 7/VISTA/XP/2000 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2000.

Run it, and see if you can right-click on the 3TB disk and assign a name to it.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Golden]

Hi,

What was on this disk? Did you have MacOS or a variant installed to this disk?

Regards,
Golden

Mmm. I asked you yesterday if had MacOS installed, and you said No. :shock:

 

[Minotaur]

sorry, i didnt know i did

 

[Golden]

Well, I think if you have formatted your drive then yes, you effectively wiped all the data off it. Try assign a drive letter to it, and see if you can browse the disk in Windows Explorer.

 

[Minotaur]

weird, okay so i reformatted to NTFS and assigned a letter but i still have the same problem, doesnt come up in my computer and i cant assign a letter on disk management

 

[Minotaur]

all good now, i just reformatted it again and delete the partition and now it works... the problem was me changing over to mac 0s but i didnt know that i did...sorry for bothering you all and thanks for all your help

 

[Golden]

Glad to hear its sorted.