USB hard drive problem

My USB hard drive was unplugged whilst in use. As such the laptop doesn't see it any more. It spins up when plugged in, but doesn't appear in the list of drives in 'Computer'.

Is there a fix please?

What happens on other machines? Can they see it?

Tried it on a Vista machine. Device drivers were installed, yet it doesn't appear in 'Computer' and can't be accessed.

On my Win 8 box (not 8.1) the drive appears in device manager. When using the Safely remove hardware feature the drive appears as an option by name, when clicking on the drive name nothing happens. The only option is to unplug. This brings up a warning message;

"Windows is unable to stop the device USB Mass Storage device. Don't remove this device whilst it is still in use. Close any programs using this device then remove it".

The drive is a Samsung M3 portable 1TB. The features of the drive were not being used, it was used as a storage drive only.

The first thing to do is to use the storage manager to see if any partitions are visible:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management

Alternatively, run 'diskmgmt.msc' from the command prompt.

I have the same issue on Win8 ... Before you try anything, make sure you have copies of data from the drive, which should be possible on your Win8 machine.


One way may be to get rid of all drivers and instances in Vista with the drive disconnected ... on Win XP that was done by opening a CMD window,

typing set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
then devmgmt.msc

Go to the view tab and click on show hidden devices. Scrolling through each option will bring up greyed out references to the drive and delete each one.

You will be surprised at te number of uninstalled/not-present USB devices.

It should force a reinstall of the drivers next time the drive is attached.

I am about to try it as I have a problem with a Nokia phone - I have lost file manager access to it although I can use te Nokia Application to update contacts, copy images off &c.

I have the same issue on Win8 ... Before you try anything, make sure you have copies of data from the drive, which should be possible on your Win8 machine.

I can't access the usb drive on either machine. Having said that the data isn't important.

I typed in the Vista machine

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

which took me to a 'Search Results in Indexed Locations' box.

I'll try Mick's suggestion. on the W8 box. Do I need to connect the usb drive?

In reply to a post by wingco1:

I'll try Mick's suggestion. on the W8 box. Do I need to connect the usb drive?

Absolutely. I want to know if the Master Boot Record is corrupted.

The Samsung disk doesn't appear in the list, where other usb disks do.

Right... It should appear even if the MBR is corrupt. I'll have to think about it. Maybe others will have suggestions.

Try running the Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) and see if it pops-up under disk drives. Don't ask it to show non-present devices.

OK. Download USBDeview and see if it is recognised as a USB device.

Edited by micksharpe (Mon 23-Mar-15 12:13:53)