External USB Drive Showing in Disk Mgmt, but NOT My Computer...HOW TO FIX?

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masungit1

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Aug 8, 2013
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My external hard drive (connected via UBS adapter) is showing as "Unallocated" in Disk Management; however, I cannot see or use it in Windows Explorer/My Computer. When I try to assign a drive letter (without formatting), I receive a message indicating "The operation cannot be completed because the disk is not initialized." I'm not sure what happened, nor what this means exactly, but I have used this external drive to archive past files (+100GB) many months ago. How do I resolve this issue so I can use my external drive once again (I don't want to press my luck and lose my archived data)? Thanks, Mark
 
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masungit1

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Aug 8, 2013
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Thanks for your fast reply, Mauller07: When I right-click on the external (Disk 1) USB drive in Disk Management, my only options are: 1) New Simple Volume; 2) Properties; and 3) Help. I've tried assigning a higher drive letter and don't see how to "initialize" this drive within Computer Management.
 
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masungit1

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Aug 8, 2013
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Thanks again for your reply. If I weren't unemployed and living in a relative's home that's being foreclosed with a wife of 20 years and twin sons that may soon be homeless, I would gladly pay you for your time and advice. I was initially using a Gateway laptop running Vista Home Premium, but then plugged my external hard drive into a newer laptop running Windows 7. It immediately informed me that I need to initialize the new drive before I could use it, which automatically ran after selecting "Ok." I then opened Disk Mgmt and assigned a drive letter (without formatting) and checked My Computer. It shows up with this new drive letter (O:), but says I need to format it before I can use it; so, I believe my data was either moved onto another hard drive, or this hard drive is corrupt. I just downloaded Miniaide Magic Partician and plan to see if I can figure this out, but any last recommendations?
 
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masungit1

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Aug 8, 2013
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Hi Mauller07: Yes, I have since connected this external USB drive to my older laptop to see if I could use it after following your direction. After initializing the external drive on my Windows 7 laptop, my Vista laptop sees this drive in My Computer and asks me to Format the drive in order to use it; however, Disk Management shows the drive with 100% Free Space (279.48 GB of 279.48 GB); therefore, I'm wondering if I already transferred the data from this drive onto another (NetGear/MyStora) wireless drive on my home network. Maybe I've gone crazy and just needed someone else to share this with (lol). I'll hold off on formatting this drive as long as possible (until age 114.5, or so), but please let me know if you think there may be data on this drive, all things considered, or if you have further ideas or recommendations. Thanks again for your time, Mark
 
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