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Thread: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    162

    Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    Hello,
    I have a 250gb Seagate external hard drive that I have been using. but my computer suddenly stopped recognizing the drive. It still recognizes it as hardware, but the drive itself wont show up in My Computer, and i cant access any files. any idea what could be the problem ?

    P.S my operating system is windows xp
    Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core @ ~2.2 GHz
    Memory: 1024MB RAM
    Hard Drive: 200 GB
    Video Card: RADEON X300/X550 Series

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    2,812

    Re: Samsung External Hard drive not detected

    Go to Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management. Then select Storage Disk Management. The drive should be listed in the physical pane at the bottom if it is connected as a mass storage device. It is possible that the file systems on the drive have become corrupted, in which case it would show up in this pane, but not in the upper pane with logical volumes.

    If it shows up here, you can right click on the empty space to take an appropriate action. Keep in mind you will lose any data that was on it if you format it. You can also add a drive letter, if, for some reason, one is absent.

    If it does not show up here, then the drive is not physically connected to the machine as storage device. On Windows XP and above, a usb device should show up automatically with no extra drivers. I believe a firewire drive will as well, it definitely does in Vista. It may require SP2.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    2,496

    Re: Samsung External Hard drive not detected

    Here are a few things to try. If you have access to a secondary PC or laptop, try connecting your drive to it using a different USB cable. Also try unplugging your drive from the power outlet for a few seconds and then connecting it again.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    1,822

    Re: Samsung External Hard drive not detected

    When you connect your usb hard disk or any other usb device you will be asked for the driver . Choose "Install from a list or a Specific location" click next.
    Then type C:\WINDOWS\inf in the box "Include this location in the search.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    2,483

    Re: Samsung External Hard drive not detected

    Follow these steps to, hopefully correct your problem:
    • Plug in your external HD
    • Righ click on My Computer
    • Click on Manage --> Disk Management
    • On the bottom right, scroll down to where you'd see your HD
    • Right click on that, select Change Drive letter and Paths...
    • Click on Change and select a different drive letter (prefer a higher letter)
    • Click on OK on the way out.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    1

    Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    I have a Dell Latitude lap-top running sound. I have Windows XP and use a Seagate 320GB external hard drive for storage. I have antivirus that I update it regularly. while using Hard disk one day all of a sudden lap-top does not recognize the Seagate external hard drive, yet the button indicating power is on and lighted, and I can feel the drive spinning. I tried the external hard drive on different computers, and again it is not recognized. My questions are:
    1. What went so wrong?
    2. Can this be avoided in the future?

    I hope somebody can help waiting for urgent help. Thank you.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    2,812

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    hi,
    check in windows disk management to make sure its not trying to use a drive letter that another device is already using'

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    1

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    A bit late for a reply to this, but I finally found a cure that worked so I thought I’d throw it out there in case it helps someone down the line….

    My drive is a Seagate 160GB (ST3160203UR-RK). I’ve tried ALL the “usual” recommendations to fix this - plugging into different PCs, different USB cable, going into Windows Disk Management (where none of those suggestions work cause when I right-click on the drive the only option I got was “Help”. Change Drive Letter, etc, didn’t even appear as an option). Nothing worked.

    What fixed it for me was altering a byte in the drive’s MBR. Using MBRwiz 2.0 at a command prompt (specifically “mbrwiz /list”) I discovered that my drive’s partition Type was set to “12-DIAG”. Entering “mbrwiz /disk=1 /type=0Bh” (that’s zero B, and substitute your own drive #) changed it back to the correct “0B-FAT32”, and viola! My drive returned with everything intact.

    I have been using Acronis True Image 9.0 and have heard rumblings that these kinds of programs can mess up external drives. Can’t prove that this was the cause, but I’ll be watching it closely from now on.

    Hope this helps.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    1

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    Actually this worked for me....what happened was the Seagate 320gb external hard drive was not getting detected..and when i go to device manage the error code was (1) so..and the display light on the external hard drive was not constant it was flickering with a sound... so ihave to use a differnt port on the back of my tower and it worked...so some thing has to do with my front USB ports power supply..

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Posts
    1

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    Try downloand this free software:

    partitionwizard

    Install the free software and select the drive letter for your external drive.
    Click on Disk in the top menu
    and select Rebuild MBR
    Click Apply then check My Computer in Windows 7 to see if you can access the external HD now.

    Good Luck!

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1

    Exclamation Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    HI I am facing the same issue. My hard disk gets detected as an external hardware, but I am not able to see the drive in Explorer. Also, when I view the Volume Information from Device Manager, it gives me error and empty information.

    I tried both the solutions - MBRWiz and PartitionWizard. Both didn't work.

    when i try to fix mbr it gave me this - Error 505: Unable to save the specified sectors to the selected disk

    In PartitionWizard, I am getting a Bad Disk message. I am strange to see that all the softwares / windows giving me a size of 2TB for the disk where as my disk is just 880GB.

    Please help as I dont want to loose all the data I have. Hope below information helps:

    ╒═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
    │ Disk: 2 MBR/GPT: None │
    │ Size: 2.00TB CHS: 267349 255 63 │
    │ Sectors: 4294967294 Disk Signature: 0x00000000 │
    │ Partitions: 0 Partition Order: │
    │ Media Type: Fixed Interface: USB │
    │ Description: Seagate FreeAgent Go │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │Pos Idx Type/Name Size Boot Hide Start Sector Total Sectors DL Vol Label │
    ├─── ─── ───────── ──── ──── ──── ────────────── ────────────── ── ───────────┤
    │ No partitions found on this disk │
    ╘═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╛

  12. #12
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    2,335

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    Hi a_joshi,

    Could you tell us how old is your Seagate FreeAgent Go hard drive? Is it a internal or external hard drive by the way? When you enable or start S.M.A.R.T in the BIOS then are you getting any hard drive error messages? If yes then your drive might be dying and you will need to backup. If it is under warranty then try to RMA it.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Posts
    1

    Re: Samsung External Hard drive not detected

    There is no icon for the external drive. Its not getting detected. Any other ideas?



    Quote Originally Posted by maxforu View Post
    Follow these steps to, hopefully correct your problem:
    • Plug in your external HD
    • Righ click on My Computer
    • Click on Manage --> Disk Management
    • On the bottom right, scroll down to where you'd see your HD
    • Right click on that, select Change Drive letter and Paths...
    • Click on Change and select a different drive letter (prefer a higher letter)
    • Click on OK on the way out.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    269

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    That looks an hardware issue. For that check in bios that any kind of external hard drive is detected or not. There are some tools like Live CD or Memtest. This cds has tools that can allow you to access your drives on the boot time. Try to update the firmware of the same also which is also matters in most condition. If the disk is damaged then it will not be detected.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Posts
    1

    Re: Seagate External Hard drive not detected

    Hi,
    I have got the 500GB HD (segate-Free agent GoFlex).After using it for few days its not getting detected in the MY Computer and in Disk Management in any system now,but it is visible in Device Manager-->Disk drives.I even changed the cable to connect it to the system.But still the problem remains the same.Could someone please help me out of this so that i should not loose any data from this?
    My system configuration is as below:

    Windows XP,version 2002,service pack 3,
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU
    E8400 @ 3.00 GHz
    2.99GHz,2.96 GB of RAM,
    Physical Adress Extension

    Thanks and Regards,
    Niranjan

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