Unable to access an external drive

[XLR8TX]

Hello All.

I haven't posted here in quite some time but you guys have always been helpful in the past.

Anyway, I have a 4 year old Buffalo 2TB external hard drive that I plug in and access periodically. However the other day when I plugged it in to my laptop it did not show up on windows explorer as it always has.

I think the computer recognizes it because it makes the proper sound effect notification given when a device is plugged in. It also shows up on the Device Manager but not in Disk Manager.

I simply can't access the drive in any way. Any thoughts or ideas? Perhaps there are some similar previous threads that could be helpful?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

 

[XLR8TX]

BTW, it's good to see that many of you are still here helping people and fighting the good fight.

 

[iko22]

Hello

I think the computer recognizes it because it makes the proper sound effect notification given when a device is plugged in. It also shows up on the Device Manager but not in Disk Manager.

I simply can't access the drive in any way. Any thoughts or ideas? Perhaps there are some similar previous threads that could be helpful?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

I have seen this problem before. It usually means that the USB interface is working, but the actual HDD has gone kaput.

Can you fetch the HDD out of the Enclosure? Do you have a local computer shop that can do data recovery? That might be your best bet.

 

[Megahertz07]

Don't try to fix it.

Plug in the External HDD and open Disk Manager (C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc)
Expand the columns so we can read them take a snapshot of hole window and post the image here as an attachment.

 

[XLR8TX]

Don't try to fix it.

Plug in the External HDD and open Disk Manager (C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc)
Expand the columns so we can read them take a snapshot of hole window and post the image here as an attachment.

Thanks for your time friends. When I have some free time I'll do what you instructed.

Pardon my ignorance but if the drive does not show up on Disk Manager what good will a screenshot do?

 

[Megahertz07]

I'm sorry. I did not see you have mentioned that it didn't show in Disk manager.

You can try to take the drive out of the enclosure and attach it to SATA port of a desktop, as Iko22 suggested