External Hard Drive Recognition Problem

Irrelevant88

New Member
Messages
4
This seems to be a common issue so I'm sorry for making another thread, but all the resolutions don't seem to work for me so I need to customized assistance.

I have a Seagate Goflex desk 500 gb external hard drive that I know works fine. I just recently purchased a Lenovo laptop with windows 8 and when I plugged in my the HD the laptop made a blip sound as if recognizing it but there's no way for me to access the files. I checked the Disk Managment and it shows up, as many other people have described. They also describe being able to fix their issues by naming the disk. But this is not possible for me. Not only is the option to change drive and letter paths grayed out when I right click, that option isn't there at all. The only options I'm given are about sizing of volume on the disc.

Additionally, the HD shows up when I go to Control Panel>Hardware and Sound>Devices and Printers. All I can do from there is check to properties and run a trouble shoot. The trouble shoot says that my issue is that my HD won't work with the USB 3.0 and to plug it into a USB 2.0 and try again. My stupid question is that is there somehow a USB 2.0 port on my computer I don't know about? I would assume they are all 3.0.

Either way any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8 pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo
There are (most likely) more 2.0 ports than 3.0 ports. The 3.0 ports are usually a blue color (inside) whereas the 2.0 ports are generally darker. How about a screenshot of that drive in disk management for starters?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro Windows 8.1 Preview
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Screenshot (3).png

Here's a screenshot. Disk 0 is the computer and Disk 1 is the external HD

I checked the USB ports. Two of them are blue like you described and the back one is Yellow? Not sure if that means its 2.0 but plugging in the HD in that port did not work.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8 pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo
OK, there is no data on that hard drive and it is not recognized because you never created a volume. So, right click on the disk manager view and try to create a simple volume formatted as NTFS. Once done, your drive will show up in explorer. Again , that drive has no data. Hope this helps.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro Windows 8.1 Preview
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Well the whole "drive has no data" comes as a surprise. That sucks. If I reformat it will it make it permanently lose the data? Or am I already screwed?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8 pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo
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