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Seagate external hard drive not showing up in my computer. [Closed]

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 Yogi -
Hello,

My 320 GB Seagate external hard drive is detected but not showing up in my computer. What should I do?

In cmd> diskpart> list volume it does not show up. (screenshot attached)

In Device Manager it gets detected. (screenshot attached)

In disk management it shows up as 'unallocated'. If I initialize it, will I lose all data on the drive? It had 4 partitions. (screenshot attached)

In My Computer also it does not show up. (screenshot attached)


Even BIOS recognizes it.

What to do? I don't want to lose any data on the drive. If I initialize it in device manager will I lose data?

I was installing window XP on my computer, usually I remove the external drive but this time I did not. The external drive was shown as 4 drives in partition manager during installation. But the installation failed. The next time I was installing windows again, the external drive was shown as 1 single unknown or unrecognized drive. I'm not sure if it was unknown or unrecognized. I'm sure I didn't format it. So what I need to do now? I don't want to lose any data.


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Answer 1 / 4
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In cmd> diskpart> list volume it does not show up. (screenshot attached)

In Device Manager it gets detected. (screenshot attached)

In disk management it shows up as 'unallocated'. If I initialize it, will I lose all data on the drive? It had 4 partitions. (screenshot attached)
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I have the same scenario.

Did you get any solution?
Answer 2 / 4
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Hi sherdil,

Unfortunately, if you initialize the drive, you will lose all the data. I would advise you to reinstall the drivers from Device Manager and search for some updates from the manufacturer's web page. Try the device on another PC and with another USB cable. If nothing helps, I would try to plug the drive, booting from a Linux Live CD.

Hope this helps
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Well, I would say that it is rather common a drive to be seen in Linux. Actually, that is why I recommended you those Live CDs as a troubleshooting step. While in XP, try to assign a drive letter to the drive, using the command prompt command DISKPART.
Type "diskpart", then "list volume", "select volume n" (where n is the number of the external drive), "assign letter =X" ( where X is the desired letter, which should not be in use).
I would check the latest drivers for some compatibility issues with XP.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2003/cc757491(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN - more about diskpart command
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I already posted screenshot of command prompt window with diskpart. It does not list the external hard drive. So I cannot assign letters.
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Have you tried reinstalling the HDD drivers from Device Manager? Sometimes this resolves the issue.
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I never installed any drivers for HDD ever. How to do that?
There is option to disable, uninstall and update driver only.
I clicked update driver, nothing happened because I don't have the drivers, they get installed automatically.
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Those drivers install automatically when you connect your device for the first time. You can uninstall them from Device Manager, under the Universal Serial Bus controller devices. After you do it, restart the PC and plug the device again. It should reinstall. You can even search the drive manufacturer's web page for some updates you can install manually.
Answer 3 / 4
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https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

download this partition tool to check the drive .download the cd bootable version..

As it shows in disk manager the drive has been wiped of all partitions leaving a blank drive.that is why it showing as unallocated space and until a partition is created on the drive it won't mount in windows.

to try retrive don't create any partition on the drive once written it will wipe the partition you want to recover.

https://www.easeus.com/ad/partition-recovery.htm?gclid=CJrCgpmIq8ECFUSUvQodkjAAeQ

this tool will retrive partitions but I haven't used it..
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Before installing this windows XP I had installed Ubuntu 9.10. External hard disk was working fine with this Ubuntu and my XP before it. I didn't like Ubuntu so I installed XP again after formatting my internal hard drive. Now external hard drive doesn't show up in 'My Computer' but when I run Ubuntu live cd (try Ubuntu without any change to computer) external hard drive works fine and I can see everything in my external hard drive. So all my data is still in there.
My internal hard drive is 80GB and external is 320GB so there is no way I can copy my data from external hard drive to some place else while on Ubuntu.

How can I get it to work on XP?
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UPDATE:

Before installing this windows XP I had installed Ubuntu 9.10. External hard disk was working fine with this Ubuntu and my XP before it. I didn't like Ubuntu so I installed XP again after formatting my internal hard drive. Now external hard drive doesn't show up in 'My Computer' but when I run Ubuntu live cd (try Ubuntu without any change to computer) external hard drive works fine and I can see everything in my external hard drive. So all my data is still in there.
My internal hard drive is 80GB and external is 320GB so there is no way I can copy my data from external hard drive to some place else while on Ubuntu.

How can I get it to work on XP?
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