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External hard drive not showing up. Is it safe to uninstal through device maneger?

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  • Western Digital
  • Devices
  • External Hard Drive
Last response: in Memory
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September 19, 2014 11:29:10 PM

My western digital extaernal recently stopped showing up under anywhere but device maneger. Is is safe to uninstal then reinstal it to see if that helps? will i lose my files if I do?

More about : external hard drive showing safe uninstal device maneger

September 23, 2014 10:03:09 PM

Unplug the USB cable for your external drive. Go to device manager and open the category with your drive, generally, disk drives. If the device is still listed, right click on it and select uninstall. Reboot and once windows is loaded plug the device back in and check to see if it is now recognized.

If no device was listed in device manager when you unplugged the USB cable, go up to "View" at the top of device manager and select "show hidden devices". Go to disk drives and see if the drive shows up as a grayed out device. If so, perform the right click uninstall as above. If not, just reboot and then plug it back in once back in windows. If none of this works, run Seatools for windows on the drive to see if there is a problem with the device. Run the short DST (Drive self test) and if it passes, run the long generic.

Seatools for windows:

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-...
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September 24, 2014 12:06:26 AM

Hi there athyrarose,

Does the device has a letter assigned in Disk Management? How does it appear over there?
Regarding your question whether it is safe to uninstall it, I would say yes. You will not lose any data.
As darkbreeze already suggested, testing the drive is a good idea. You can use the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics though, as it is brand specific software.

WD DLG tool: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=810...

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD
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September 24, 2014 12:28:16 AM

D_Know_WD said:
Hi there athyrarose,

Does the device has a letter assigned in Disk Management? How does it appear over there?
Regarding your question whether it is safe to uninstall it, I would say yes. You will not lose any data.
As darkbreeze already suggested, testing the drive is a good idea. You can use the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics though, as it is brand specific software.

WD DLG tool: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=810...

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD


Yep, the WD tools are good too. Any worthy drive test will work for the purpose of establishing fitness though.
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September 24, 2014 12:43:21 AM

Totally agree with you.
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