Drive not recognized in windows

It is not allowing me to change the letter of the drive by the way. This is what I see:. Ooops, I wanted to paste a photo of the screens I see but it won't let me do that here! What is the problem? A picture is worth a thousand words they say!!! Okay, here is the photo.

Not very clear, but I hope you can see it. Same errors. I wouldn't care to have the drive replaced I just regret all the backup files that it contains! I will follow your suggestions to check if the disk is unusable next. I downloaded SeaTools for Windows but when I run it it only recognizes the C drive, so I cannot check my external drive. Only when I go to properties on the C drive it gives me a tab with tools and I can check that drive.

No such option with the other drives. I have to update the drivers, first automatically and then by choosing one. I went to properties and uninstalled the drive, then restarted. In answering the other suggestion by another user, when it restarted, I went to disk management, it says I need to initialize disk 1 but if I say okay, it gives me "the request failed due to fatal device hardware error".

I think I have exhausted all options Did I miss something important? I seems to have read somewhere a few months back that maybe a Mac would open it? I don't know anyone who owns one yet. The computer sees the hard drive because it appears in devices. However, the hard drive does not appear in the files menu and I cannot access it. This question was asked in , but it has not really been answered.

I have the same problem and my TB backup is locked!!!! I have gone through all the troubleshooting online, including YouTube videos without success. But on the disc manager it says it need to be initialized but it won't give me the option or it gives me an error. But if I go to properties right there, it says the device is working properly and that it has the best drive. It seems to be a common error because it's all over the internet, but Microsoft have not solved it.

This thread is locked. Check your email. You will soon see an email from Microsoft with a download link for the hotfix. Select the link and follow the onscreen instructions to download and install the hotfix. This method resolves steps where the currently loaded USB driver has become unstable or corrupted. This method updates your motherboard's chipset drivers, so your computer will recognize your USB external hard drive. For more information, see Windows Update.

Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported. Download Microsoft Edge More info. Therefore, it is recommended to apply the powerful disk formatting tool — AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard , which breaks the limit of 32GB in partition size and offers you more options about file system.

Return to the main interface. If your WD hard drive is even not showing up in Windows 10 or Windows 11 Disk Management, you could consider whether there is something wrong with the WD hard drive device driver. Click disk drives and check if there is a yellow exclamation mark with WD hard drive disk device. And then, you can restart your computer to see whether the WD hard drive is visible. When the connection port is dead or damaged, you will not see WD hard drive in Windows 10 or Follow the steps below: 1.

Locate the WD hard drive that going to be initialized and right-click it.