3TB HDD Error

Red Porsche · 5 Jun 2016 at 11:23

I recently reinstalled Windows 8 on to my desktop SSD drive with a 1TB drive and a 3TB drive which were working fine. After reinstalling windows my SSD drive and 1TB drive appear as they should but the 3TB drive doesn't. I cant find it in My Computer but I can see the drive in Disk Management but I'm unable to do anything with the 3TB drive. I also get an error for the 3TB in Storage Spaces Management:

Drive with an unrecognised configuration

The following drives contain an unrecognised configuration and can't be used with Storage Spaces. Reset the drives to make them usable. If the drives continue to be unrecognised, you might need to replace them.

I'm not sure what do to. I don't want to reset the drive as there is data on there that I need.

Thanks for any help.

Boogieman_WD · 7 Jun 2016 at 10:33

Hi Red Porsche.

Have you installed Windows while you had all your drives connected to the motherboard, by any chance? Sometimes this might cause similar issues, including OS update problems, booting issues, etc.

Have you had any problems with that drive before? Any unusual sounds/noises coming from it; freezing/hanging your system; unusual transfer speed, etc?

You should try the drive with a different SATA port and different cables, or even better - with a different computer if possible.

For data recovery, you could try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if that OS is capable of recognizing the partition properly so that you can get to your files and recover them.
Another option would be data recovery software: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm.

For now please stay away from diagnostic tools and all sort of tests as the only time the drive is being used should be for data recovery. This is necessary, because if there's a mechanical issue with the HDD, things could get worse every time you use it.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD