external drive no longer working

[hisairness]

My external drive appears to be no longer working. My PC freezes when I try to open it in 'My Computer' and when I open 'Disk Management' and basically all the other suggested functions related to it. I am not after the data. I just want to use my external drive again if that's possible. Thank you for your help!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

All hard drives fail at some point, especially external ones since there's more to go wrong. Inside the enclosure is a small PCB which internal drives don't have. That small PCB often fails, leaving the drive inaccessible. Extract the drive and try it in a third-party hard drive enclosure.