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The thread discusses troubleshooting an external hard drive that isn't recognized properly on a Windows system. The original poster encounters issues with assigning a drive letter and accessing the drive, while other users suggest steps like using Disk Management, Diskpart, and checking BIOS configurations. Ultimately, the original poster successfully resolves the issue after following the recommended disk cleaning and reformatting procedures.
Prestigebumps1

Prestigebumps1

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Thread Author #1
So I bought an external hard drive because you never know when your computer may need to reset. So I plugged it in and it did not come up. I went into disk management and I dont know what to do from there on out.. I posted an attachment so you can see.
 

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  • problem.webp
    problem.webp
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Solution
Saltgrass
If you got the drive cleaned, in Disk Management, you will have to initialize the drive by clicking on the left end and selecting initialize. After the drive is initialized you can format it and add a drive letter.

I have done the clean option on a drive to show you how it goes.
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davehc

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#2
Right click it. select "change drive letter and paths". Add and, if it suits, accept the default letter.

Depending on the HD, you may have to do this whenever you boot.
 

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J

Joe S

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#3
Just t be clear this is not disk 1 I assume. First make sure you are not using a cable longer than the one supplied or connecting through a hub. If it is a powered drive try plugging directly into the wall instead of the surge protector. If this is a desktop try a USB port on the back, sometimes that makes a difference. Make sure the USB drivers are all up to date. If it is disk 1 try assigning a letter to it.
Joe
 

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Prestigebumps1

Prestigebumps1

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davehc said:
Right click it. select "change drive letter and paths". Add and, if it suits, accept the default letter.

Depending on the HD, you may have to do this whenever you boot.
Click to expand...
I tried but for some reason it is blacked out, it wont let me click it.
 

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Saltgrass

Saltgrass

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#5
Drive 0 appears to be the Lenovo system with its normal partitions.

Drive 1 seems to have an EFI System partition and is set as GPT. Do you know what is on Drive 1 and why it has a EFI partition? Which System partition are you booting to? To find out, Open and Administrative Command prompt and type bcdedit then copy and paste the results.
 

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Saltgrass

Saltgrass

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#7
Is Drive 1 the external drive and you can boot normally without it?

I think you need to use Diskpart to clean that drive and get whatever those remnants, wherever they came from, off that drive. You just need to make sure you are not booting to it.

Possibly what is going on with Bcdedit is the two EFI partitions are confusing it, but not sure. You will get that message if you are not using the Administrative version of the Command Prompt window. It should show Administrative at the top.

If you have data on it you need to move and you can't access it, we may see if we can just remove the EFI partition, which diskpart can do, probably with the override switch. But let us know what you think.
 

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Saltgrass

Saltgrass

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#9
If you don't have data on it or something you really need to keep, open the Admin command prompt again and use diskpart to clean the drive.

The following are the commands you would use, with an Enter after each line. Just make very sure you are looking at the correct drive before you clean it. One way to make sure is to list the partitions and see if they agree with what you see in disk management.

Diskpart
list disk

The one you want should be Disk 1, but make sure.

list partition

If the partitions agree with the drive you want,

clean

If you want it converted to GPT,

convert gpt

exit
You should now be able to format the drive as necessary. If you convert the Drive to GPT from within Windows, it will put the 128 MB MSR partition at a 17K offset. If you want to install something on the drive, you may need to clean it again, or use Diskpart to remove that partition or during the actual Install process.
 

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Prestigebumps1

Prestigebumps1

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Thread Author #11
so I did that, but the disk1 is not coming up. It has 933 GB of storage and it wont show up in cmd.
 

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Saltgrass

Saltgrass

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#12
If you got the drive cleaned, in Disk Management, you will have to initialize the drive by clicking on the left end and selecting initialize. After the drive is initialized you can format it and add a drive letter.

I have done the clean option on a drive to show you how it goes.
 

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  • DiskClean.webp
    DiskClean.webp
    49.3 KB · Views: 341
  • DiskClean2.webp
    DiskClean2.webp
    25.8 KB · Views: 292
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Solution
Prestigebumps1

Prestigebumps1

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Thread Author #13
Saltgrass said:
If you got the drive cleaned, in Disk Management, you will have to initialize the drive by clicking on the left end and selecting initialize. After the drive is initialized you can format it and add a drive letter.

I have done the clean option on a drive to show you how it goes.
Click to expand...
it says un allocated what do I do from there
 

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