USB-connected hard drive no longer recognized

Gnorb

New Member
Messages
3
Hello all,

I'm hoping I can get some help with this: A few hours ago, I connected a hard drive to my PC. I was able to read/write to it just fine. In fact, I've used it various times in the past.

I just tried connecting it again now, and the drive is not showing up on Windows 8.1 at all. It's not being detected.

I connected the drive to a Mac to see if it was the drive, but it wasn't: the Mac was able to read it just fine.

I've had a similar situation in the past with this machine, where my iPhone was, seemingly out of nowhere, no longer recognized by the system. Plugging it in would register on the phone, but the PC wouldn't acknowledge its existence.

I'm completely at a loss as to why this can be. Other drives connect to the PC just fine (in fact, I have another one connected now, as I write this, backing up some data). Any help is appreciated.

TIA.

EDIT: I hope this is the right forum for this question. It sounds like it might be a driver issue, hence my guess. If I'm wrong, my apologies.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Most people seem to use laptops now-a-days, so I'm not sure whether this will apply to you.

On my desktop with a USB 3.0 PCI-E card installed, after installing both Windows 8 and 8.1 it done the same as you. I.E. When I connected an external hard drive via USB it initially worked fine, but later it suddenly stopped working for no reason. I can't remember exactly what error it showed in Action Centre > Reliability Monitor, something along the lines of Video Hardware Error, LiveKernelEvent.

To cure it I disconnected the power connector to the USB PCI card for about 10 seconds, reconnected it and after booting the problem was cured (until I re-installed Windows about a year later, where exactly the same thing happened and I had to do the same thing again). So if you are using a desktop PC with a PCI USB card installed, try that.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8 64-bit
I have a tower I built recently, so I'll definitely be giving that a try (probably tomorrow evening, as I need to work tonight). I'll keep you updated. The USB ports aren't through a PCI card, they're on the case (Fractal Design R4), connected to the motherboard (Gigabyte Z87x-UD4H).

Thanks!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Did you try on the USB ports directly on the MB behind the case, front ones can make problems.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
Yep, tried both. Nothing doing. What's odd is that the same thing happened with my iPhone a few weeks back, and now I can't back up the sucker. I'll take it this isn't a common issue, but is this a sign of anything wrong going on with my PC?

NOTE: The issue with the hard drive itself, however, was resolved by reformatting the drive. (I used the Mac to format the drive to Fat32.) I'll be trying the aforementioned method, though, for the iPhone itself.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
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