Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

External hard drive turns on, doesn't seem to be running, not in disk management

Tags:
  • Devices
  • External Hard Drive
  • Storage
  • Toshiba
Last response: in Storage
Share
November 14, 2013 8:00:40 PM

Toshiba 3TB external hard drive. Using a Toshiba laptop pre-installed with Windows 8. The device has previously worked on this computer.

When plugged into the wall and a USB drive, the blue light turns on, and it is listed under the the "Devices and Printers" section, but it DOES NOT show up in my Computer and it DOES NOT show up in Disk Management. When I click "Eject External USB 3.0", I get a message that Windows is unable to stop the device. It is also is not making any noise.and the adapter doesn't seem to be getting warm.

I tried to see if it was in the BIOS based on the stickied guide from this forum, but I'm not a hundred percent sure where exactly the list of drives is. The main menu had a blurred out list under "system date" that went:

CPU Type
CPU Speed
HDD/SDD
ODD
Total Memory Size

Under the Boot menu, there was a list that went:

1. HDD/SSD
2. USB
3. ODD
4. LAN

I booted twice, once with the device plugged in, once without. These lists were the same each time. I didn't see any differences in the other menus (though I didn't have those ones memorized, so if you can tell me somewhere else I should look, I can retry this).

Possible problem: I'm in a foreign country that uses a different type of outlet, so I'm using an adapter to connect the external hard drive to the outlet. The adapter works fine for my laptop, but is it possible that it doesn't do the job for the external hard drive?

Otherwise, I'm afraid it might have gotten damaged during the plane trip. Is there a way to tell for sure? Any other tests I can do before I return to the States in April?

More about : external hard drive turns running disk management

November 14, 2013 8:29:58 PM

See if you can format the hard drive.
m
0
l
November 15, 2013 8:29:14 AM

That's done by locating it in Disk Management, isn't it? It does not appear in Disk Management. I just have my (C:)  drive and three unnamed/blank ones with 100% free space. Nothing extra appears when I plug it in.
m
0
l
Related resources
November 15, 2013 9:35:44 AM

Is it black? Try creating a partition through it, it won't be located without a partition as far as I remember.
m
0
l
November 15, 2013 9:55:11 AM

The casing of the hard drive is black, if that's what you're asking? If you meant blank, no it's not. It has data on it that I would like to keep.

As for partitioning it, all the manuals and how-tos I'm looking at online seem to require me to locate it in Disk Management, where mine is not appearing. I tried downloading AOMEI's program Partition Assistant, and it isn't locating the device. Also it looks like partitioning the device will end up erasing all the data I currently have on it? I don't want to do that.
m
0
l
November 15, 2013 10:28:25 AM

Try installing Gparted, it's a much better Disk Management service, and see if you can locate the hard drive there.
And what I mean by black, I mean is the bar next to the Hard Drive letter black?
m
0
l
November 15, 2013 10:45:36 AM

Downloading Gparted now, but it's taking awhile (internet here can get pretty slow). The bars above all the disks are blue. Here's a screenshot of what my disk management looks like: http://i.imgur.com/tvAnoPC.png . It looks the same regardless of whether or not the external hard drive is plugged in.
m
0
l
November 15, 2013 11:27:45 AM

What you might want to try doing is booting from a Linux drive, like Fedora or Ubuntu, and see if it can locate it too, if not, your hard drive is probably broken.
m
0
l
Related resources
!