seagate external hard drive recognized but not accessible

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Edward Hyde

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May 16, 2015
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my hard drive stopped working after a shutdown. at this point the pc recognizes it but can't access it and i'm in desperate need of retrieving the data. i was preparing to format so all of my work and my master is in there. i don't care to save the hard drive i just want to access it for a short amount of time just to get the data back. the hard drive is a Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive. it appears connected, it has a letter assign to it but the name changed back to local disk, it appears at device manager, but not at disk management and from time to time i get a request for format. pls help
 
Solution
D_Know_WD
Hi there Edward Hyde,

This is unpleasant. :(

I just want to start with that your safest bet of recovering the data is to contact a data recovery company. Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have some data recovery partners. So, in case you want to recover the data by yourself, you do it on your own risk.

You can start with something simple as just changing the USB cable as well as connecting the drive to another port.
The fact that the HDD is not recognized by Disk Management is not really a good sign. This means that you will most probably not be able to access it with some software tools. One thing you can try is some data recovery for DOS. You can try the Ubuntu Live CD approach. Check this out...
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there Edward Hyde,

This is unpleasant. :(

I just want to start with that your safest bet of recovering the data is to contact a data recovery company. Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have some data recovery partners. So, in case you want to recover the data by yourself, you do it on your own risk.

You can start with something simple as just changing the USB cable as well as connecting the drive to another port.
The fact that the HDD is not recognized by Disk Management is not really a good sign. This means that you will most probably not be able to access it with some software tools. One thing you can try is some data recovery for DOS. You can try the Ubuntu Live CD approach. Check this out: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode

Some users take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it as internal if nothing else work. This may work out in case there is something wrong with the enclosure. Though, this may not work out in case the drive is hardware encrypted or has proprietary connector. Also, it will void the warranty.

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD
 
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Edward Hyde

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May 16, 2015
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I gave the hard disk to a professional, if he can do anything about it I 'll try the DOS and the ubuntu live. I have already tried changing the USB cable and connecting the hard disk to another pc, or directly to the pc (warranty expired a while ago) but nothing, software tools didn't work either the moment I start scanning the hard disk even hell freezes over. I was hopping that if nothing works I could send the hard disk to data recovery company, but I've heard they charge an awful lot of money.

dor_nob: the operation system is win 7 professional.

Thank you both for your help I really appreciate it.
 
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Frank 1507

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Nov 6, 2015
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Hi to all,

I see this post is from May 2015 and I'm writing this on November 2015...,
so I hope Edward, that you were able to recover your data by now.

Since I have the same problem; "Disc detected but not accessible" .... I write my story here for all others to consider.

I had a Win7 PC with the Seagate connected to it and it worked fine.
Then I had a new laptop with Win 8.1 on it and I experienced Homegroup problems sharing the files on the external disk from the start.
I found many folders (very odd, not all) blocked.
So I started to mess with the user rights (not very smart after all)
It all became worse. After some trying the Folders I could open, but not the files in them ...
I messed a little more, then some files I could access, but some still I could not.

Fed up with 8.1 I decided to upgrade to Win 10.
Same shit, even worse on Homegroup ! (slow, no rights)
Convinced it was related to User Rights, I tried and tried for days, but nothing worked. ( files remained randomly accessible).

Then I had the bright idea to connect the Seagate to my Win10-laptop ... (wished I'd never done that!)
Still no access. Again some experimenting with user rights ofcourse, but no go.
After putting the Seagate back to the Win7 PC I became very, very upset and frustrated because now it was no longer accessible there either!

So now I'm in big trouble with 2 books on it I was working on, on it and a lot of research files for my books and personal pictures and documents on the Seagate Disk ...

What I mean to say is, that it is not always (almost never) a bad disk, but rather the incredible stupid way of how Microsoft is protecting Home User data, as if it were NSA security files, which for a normal computer user is Impossible to understand and how to deal with these matters.
So I hope some expert is able to explain how to solve this access problem in readable language ....

Frank vd Kommer
Netherlands
f.vandenkommer@telfort.nl
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there Frank 1507,

It would be a good idea to start a new thread so other users can see it as well.
Apart from that, as you think that this is related to user rights, then I guess you can try taking ownership of the drive and grant permissions afterwards. Also, you can try the Ubuntu Live CD that I've already mentioned in my previous post.

There is a possibility that there is something wrong with the drive as well. You can test it: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

D_Know_WD
 
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kloze.2.jc

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Oct 19, 2017
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Hi,

I know this is very long after the fact (as this issue only happened to me today, and good old Google took me to this post and another one), but I just wanted to share that I also had the same problem. In my case, it was definitely to do with user rights. After Frank 1507's post, I decided to try with another USB memory drive that I had (which I knew definitely worked), and it came up with the same message: (Drive) "not accessible".

So I then tried on a different laptop (one without user restrictions), and wallah - both drives (the Seagate external hard drive and my other USB memory drive) worked. I managed to access both as if there were not any problems in the first place.

It was a bit strange that it did happen to me in the first place, especially since I could access it before - but then I worked out that my work IT guy (I think) had done something recently to all of the work computers and laptops so that anything we put in via USB was not accessible. I think the only way to overcome this is to have administrator rights on your computer (which I don't have as my laptop is a work one and only the IT guy has administrator rights).

I came across a similar thread with this issue, and someone did post a possible solution to this (though I'm not sure why it wasn't picked as a best answer) - if you see the thread it's in Promomilia's answer - see http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3333667/1tb-seagate-external-hard-drive-accessible.html - though I didn't have to try this in the end, I suspect this may have worked.

Anyway, I thought I would just share my thoughts so that others who still do come across the same problem may find this helpful (hopefully).

Thanks.

 
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