computer won't recognize SB 3.0 external drive

[richardd]

I am experiencing problems getting my computer to recognize my new USB 3.0 external drives. This happens in both Vista and 7, both Seagate and WD drives. When I first plug the drive into the computer it shows the balloon message that it is installing the software. After it says the device is ready to use, autoplay opens the explorer window and I am all set. I save my files and all seems fine.

The problem occurs when I try to use the drive again. When I plug it in, the computer finds a USB mass storage device, but it doesn't get a drive letter, and I can't access the contents. I am worried that I won't be able to recover my files. We have had problems at the Slugo meetings with 3.0 ports not recognizing 3.0 drives. My computers have only 2.0 ports and the drives are supposed to be backward compatible.

The instructions for use say to plug the drive into the power outlet and when it is up to speed plug it into the USB port on the computer. I get a 90% or more failure rate doing this. I have found that if Windows is fully loaded on the computer, and I connect the drive to the USB port next, and lastly connect the power cord to the drive I get a 90% success rate. That's not the accepted way of using these drives and I am now afraid I may be damaging them.  I have a lot of video files so these drives are 2 terabytes to 5 TB in size.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? Any observations or advice would be appreciated.

[grega]

Richard, ..

Have you checked the Seagate and Western Digital websites to see if your devices have the latest firmware?

Your data should also be available if you boot up "Parted Magic" (via a CD or USB Flash-Stick). Parted magic is a rescue Linux distro that will recognize those devices, mount them by clicking the drive icons in the default file manager, and then allow you to copy/paste/delete back to internal drives, other external drives or even a cloud service. This will not alter your existing hard drive data or your Windows in any way.

You could even copy your media files to a temp directory in the hdd for vista or win7, and then access & manage the files per above . . this works for both hot or cold plugs.

partedmagic.com/

If I recall right, Derrick had a similar issue, where windows wouldn't recognize his new usb3 external drive . . . but both ChromeOS and Linux saw and mounted the drives without issues.

[Derek L]

How to: Initialize And Format A New Disk For Use In Windows

This article helped me solve this problem with my ext usb 3 SSD

www.overclock.net/t/1227647/how-to-initialize-and-format-a-new-disk-for-use-in-windows

Today's drives can end up in one of several different OS's

So to prevent potential compatibility issues, some manufacturers don't pre-partition and pre-format them.

As Greg mentioned, Chrome and Linux do much of this automatically.

Windows needs a little help.

Windows has a "disk management" tool that you can access by entering "disk management" in the windows start menu search box.

Follow the step by step instructions in the article, and you should be good to go.