Non-Viewable External Haddrive Help

lee4892

Up until two days ago my Maxtor external hard drive was working fine. But now it is not showing up in 'My computer' nor anywhere else. By searching for a specific file from it, I can find it on the C: drive of my computer, however there's a blue question mark on it and it's reading a 'The drive or network connection that the shortcut 'blahblahblah.Ink' refers to is unavailable. Make sure that the disk is properly inserted or the network resource is available, and then try again'.

I've unplugged and restarted it a few times, Tried a number of different USB ports, restored the computer system etc but I cannot get it to show up or work. I don't want to reboot my system and risk loosing files etc but there are very valuable files on this drive. I backed up the files onto a seperate Hard drive, this time larger seagate, but this is now showing the same error since today.

Anyone any suggestions?

Lazarus2.0

Are you using the same external enclosure for both the Maxtor and Seagate ? First thing I would do is check if the enclosure(s) work on another computer .... actually , if the enclosure has multiple interfaces check first that it is switched to USB , rather than eSata/firewire etc (and powered on *hides* )

Also have a look in Device Manager to see if all is ok in there on your USB controllers - are there any exclamation marks or anything on the icons beside them ?

Reinstalling Windows is extreme - its more likely that uninstalling the USB controllers and rebooting so Windows reinstals them of its own accord will fix software issues . If the problem is hardware-related you may need to work around it but no point jumping the gun . If you can confirm/eliminate the enclosure(s) as the source of the problem we'll have a better idea of how to proceed .

For peace of mind I'll point out that enclosure failure isnt the same as external HD failure , if you can feel the drive spinning and no audible clicking there's no reason to think the actual HDs are faulty .

lee4892

nessyguin wrote: »

Are you using the same external enclosure for both the Maxtor and Seagate ? First thing I would do is check if the enclosure(s) work on another computer .... actually , if the enclosure has multiple interfaces check first that it is switched to USB , rather than eSata/firewire etc (and powered on *hides* )

Also have a look in Device Manager to see if all is ok in there on your USB controllers - are there any exclamation marks or anything on the icons beside them ?

Reinstalling Windows is extreme - its more likely that uninstalling the USB controllers and rebooting so Windows reinstals them of its own accord will fix software issues . If the problem is hardware-related you may need to work around it but no point jumping the gun . If you can confirm/eliminate the enclosure(s) as the source of the problem we'll have a better idea of how to proceed .

For peace of mind I'll point out that enclosure failure isnt the same as external HD failure , if you can feel the drive spinning and no audible clicking there's no reason to think the actual HDs are faulty .

Thanks for you're reply.

No they are seperate HD's in their own enclosures as purchased. They were never fiddled around with etc. I don't have another computer in the house so can't check them but I know they're working because both are making the normal sounds. Both are powered on I already checked as it's happened before haha

Can't see them in the device manager but that just may be that I'm not looking close enough. Yeah when searching fora specific file, I can get them to show up in the C: drive and there there is a Blue question mark showing on the icon of both.

As above they're still making their normal sounds etc so I doubt they're actually broken or faulty, just in hiding