Member Avatar for sammy0585

Hi all.

I have a 500gb external freecom harddrive. This had been working fine until today.
When i turn it on i get the connection beep and it shows up in Device manager as working fine. BUT it does not show up in Disk Management or My Computer.

This coincides with another external harddrive which i bought and installed yesterday, which subsequently stopped showing up anywhere on numerous laptops it was tried on and had to be returned to store as faulty.

Can anyone shed any light on this problem, i'm seriously stuck without this harddrive!

Cheers,
Sammy

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by 4th&3wood

Dani AI

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Both and describe the same pattern: the enclosure powers up and Windows briefly registers something, but no volume or disk appears in Disk Management/My Computer. 's hint about USB power/management is relevant, but the next useful steps are low-level checks that distinguish an enclosure/controller problem from an actual disk failure.

Look for kernel/system messages and a low-level device listing before making any changes. On Windows, capture what the OS actually sees:

diskpart
list disk
exit

and

wmic diskdrive get model,name,size,interfaceType

Also inspect the System log in Event Viewer right after plugging the unit; entries mentioning "disk", "atapi", or "USBSTOR" often show why the device failed to enumerate.

If Windows tools do not show the drive, try a different OS to rule out Windows-specific issues. Boot a Linux live USB and check kernel messages and block devices:

dmesg | tail -n 50
sudo lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL
sudo fdisk -l

If Linux sees the raw disk, create an image before any writes (use ddrescue) and attempt partition-recovery on the image with TestDisk. Example ddrescue usage:

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX ~/disk-image.img ~/ddrescue.log

If no OS shows a block device but the drive spins, the USB-to-SATA bridge inside the enclosure is the likely culprit. Removing the drive and connecting it directly to a desktop SATA port or a known-good powered USB-SATA adapter will confirm this (note: may void warranty). If the drive clicks, fails to spin, or emits unusual noises, stop further attempts and consider professional recovery. If the disk appears as "Not initialized" or RAW in Disk Management and the data is important, avoid initializing or quick-formatting — image first, then recover partitions from the clone.

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Member Avatar for sdeas34

Can anyone help me as well I have the same problem and can't seem to get it to work. When I hook mine up through usb it says it is loading a WD drive and then that's it I can't see it any where not even disk manager in windows please help I have my entire life story on this drive

Member Avatar for 4th&3wood

Have you tried another USB port with the hdd?

There is a problem with USB ports where the Selective Suspend feature in the registry will occasionally not wake when it should, you can try the following to see if this is what is happening.

Start> right click on My Computer> Manage> Device Manager.

Right click on the monitor icon at the top of the list of devices and click on Scan for hardware changes.

As for the new hdd, was the drive formatted?

If it is a SATA, did you install the drivers for the motherboard to support it?

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