New Additional Hard Drive No Longer Showing in This PC or Explorer

axel

axel

axel

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I installed a new 1TB storage drive a few months ago and all was working fine. I copied lots of seldom used files and photographs to it and I have done this several times since. When I went to backup a few files this morning the hard drive was not showing in This PC or in Explorer. I had a look in Device Manager and the drive is listed there and the status is "working properly".

Any help to get my drive back so that I can access it would be appreciated.
 
I am not sure, see image. I assume that it is the unknown disk, however the disk is 1TB and not 257GB? Why would it stop recognising the disk when I have been using it? Unfortunately this is the backup disk to free up storage on my C: drive.

https://imgur.com/gNpvnFT
 
Not sure why it's showing incorrect size
Is 257gb approximately the amount of data was on it by any chance?
You could double check in diskpart If its showing as 1tb
Diskpart
list disks
You could probably initialise it then try data recovery software
Though if you have too much data on it
You wouldn't be able to recover it to C drive
Just initialise not format or create new partition
Though may be worth trying other stuff first
Depending how important the data on it is

Could try cmd prompt as admin
Sfc /scannow

Also saw someone the other day attached a drive as a vhd
In disk management to recover data
Though not sure if you can attach an uninitialized drive or not

As to why it happens
Drive could be faulty
Though more likely its just Windows error
That sort of stuff is why I have multiple back up drives
Including ones isolated from the pc
 
Tetras said:
Is this an actual hard disk (spinner winner) or an SSD?
Click to expand...
It is a 1TB SSD, about 6 weeks old, and there is not that much data on it, probably 200Gb at the most. I ran Sfc /scannow yesterday as I thought bootup was a bit slower than usual. Not sure if that caused the issue or if it was there previously. I do not access the disk very often.
 
axel said:
It is a 1TB SSD, about 6 weeks old, and there is not that much data on it, probably 200Gb at the most. I ran Sfc /scannow yesterday as I thought bootup was a bit slower than usual. Not sure if that caused the issue or if it was there previously. I do not access the disk very often.
Click to expand...

SSDs are more inclined to die or corrupt themselves in weird and wonderful ways than an HDD, unfortunately, but on the plus side, they also have an ability to fix themselves for no apparent reason than "'cos?" (so I'd avoid messing with the partitions/file tables for now). What model was it? Some drives have known issues that you can get around.
 
could do 1 step further in diskpart
select disk x (x being the disk number you want)
list partitions
or list volumes
just to see if it can spot the other 750gb

did you try attach as vhd?
probably wont work with unitialised drive but cant hurt
 
Tetras said:
SSDs are more inclined to die or corrupt themselves in weird and wonderful ways than an HDD, unfortunately, but on the plus side, they also have an ability to fix themselves for no apparent reason than "'cos?" (so I'd avoid messing with the partitions/file tables for now). What model was it? Some drives have known issues that you can get around.
Click to expand...

WD Blue SA510 1TB SSD 2.5" SATA Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0A) purchased here.​

 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
could do 1 step further in diskpart
select disk x (x being the disk number you want)
list partitions
or list volumes
just to see if it can spot the other 750gb

did you try attach as vhd?
probably wont work with unitialised drive but cant hurt
Click to expand...
Sorry I cannot do that as I do not know how to select the drive, remember I cannot see it. It is listed as drive 0 in diskpart so I tried tried "disk 0 list partition" which did not work. The following image is from Device Manager with the correct drive and size and confirmation that is it working properly.

https://imgur.com/ix3yvF1
 
would be
diskpart
select disk 0
list volumes

in device manager
where you were in that picture
can you click volumes
then populate?

other non destructive ideas
try a different sata cable
try the drive in a different pc
or an external caddy
if you have either of those available

theres probably also western digital dashboard software
though not sure if theres anything in there that
might help
but it may at least be able to test the drive health

edit
too slow typing lol
dashboard got mentioned
while i was 1 finger typing lol
 
Last edited:
Try something like CrystalDiskInfo which can show your drive stats, it should tell you if the disk is faulty or not.

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...
crystalmark.info
 
VersionMonkey said:
Do you have the Western Digital Dashboard software installed? What does that say about the drive?
Click to expand...

No devices detected.

Mcnumpty2323 said:
would be
diskpart
select disk 0
list volumes

in device manager
where you were in that picture
can you click volumes
then populate?
Click to expand...
DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 231 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 1 RAW Partition 450 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 2 FAT32 Partition 99 MB Healthy System
Volume 3 RAW Partition 842 MB Healthy Hidden

DISKPART> list partition

There are no partitions on this disk to show.

DISKPART>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Device Manager - Volume/ populate

https://imgur.com/n0RenTW

This contradicts the the main screen which gives the correct capacity 1000GB and says the device is working properly.
 
other than
try a different sata cable
try a different sata port
try the drive in a different pc
or an external caddy
or boot off a live usb like parted magic or ubuntu

you may have to bite the bullet and try to initialise it
then attempt data recovery
though you would want enough space on C drive or
an external drive to recover it to

unless anyone else has any ideas that
havent previously been mentioned?
 
I have a 300GB external drive that I could use for recovery, but do not want to risk losing 20 years of family photographs and I know I should have backed them up to Google Drive.
 
Eddie99 said:
Try something like CrystalDiskInfo which can show your drive stats, it should tell you if the disk is faulty or not.

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...
crystalmark.info
Click to expand...
This only shows my C drive.
 
if you cant
try a different sata cable
try a different sata port
try the drive in a different pc
or an external caddy

had a look at my bootable isos
something like sergei strelec live usb has quite a few tools on it
from memory anyway i didnt boot off it to look
but if even the manufacturers software cant see it
thats not great
 
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