Unable to access external Hard Drive

Unable to access external Hard Drive

Hello Mr. Johnathan,

I can understand how important this data is to you, but do not worry, we will perform few troubleshooting steps to get your external Hard Drive detected without loss of valuable data.

1. Foremost, we need to update few firmware/drivers on your desktop/laptop. To do this, you either need to have the drivers disk provided by manufacturer or we can download them from the manufacturer’s support site. The firmware/driver we need to update are – Express Chipset Family, Management Engine Interface and Card Reader. You can update them from the driver’s disk. If not, then log in to manufacturer’s site and get into driver’s and download section. Enter your system service tag number, select your system OS. Once done, you will find these drivers under “Chipset” category. Most likely, your issue will get resolved by performing these steps. If not, then let’s get on to the second step.

2. This step is basically to retrieve your valuable data which we do not want to lose. There are quite a few data recovery software which we can use. I would vote for Recuva because I am personally using it and more over it’s a free recovery tool. Alternate option would be the drive recovery, Stellar, GetDataBack or Data recovery wizard. Connect your external Hard Drive and install one of these free/trial versions on your desktop/laptop. Once installed, then try to extract the files saved on external Hard Drive and save it to different locations such as pen drive, CD/DVD or another external Hard Drive.

3. In this third option, we will try to connect your external Hard Drive to the desktop system for which we require SATA cable. Once we have the SATA cable, unscrew the desktop lid and connect the power connector cable to external Hard Drive and the SATA connector on the desktop motherboard. You will find more than one SATA connector on the desktop motherboard. Turn on the system once done, and it should detect your external Hard Drive. If it fails to detect your external Hard Drive here, consider External Hard Drive failure.

4. You may also try exploring the option of connecting your External Hard Drive on to any other desktop/laptop systems besides yours. This will help us isolating the problem if it is with USB port of the External Hard Drive itself.

5. Another option is to carry the External Hard Drive to the manufacturer if it is in warranty. This will help you out getting the issue resolved either by fixing up the drive or replacing it with another one.