External drive showing as local disk

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H

harrokr

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Mar 14, 2011
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18,510
Hello,
I use Seagate 2 TB external hard drive on window xp and 7. I've been using it quite awhile and it worked fine until yesterday it started showing up as "local disk" not "my external drive," which I named it that way. so i can't even use it right now.
And when it's plugged in, it slows the computer down a lot. Please please please please help me out what's going on.
 
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and no i can't access anything. it says i have to format it to use it again. but i only used up about 500GB out of 2TB..
 
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Mine is currently doing the same thing for the version of Vista that I use. It doesn't work on other computers either. My friend's is doing the same thing and his was brand spanking new.
 
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Hi, I had the same issue on my 180 Western Digital External drive, the hard drive was working fine when i used it the other night to check on my files, when i got back from home from work the next day, it showed "Local Disk" on My Computer. i tried almost everything to troubleshoot it, change the drive letter name, uninstalled/ reinstalled the drivers for the drive, disabled it, etc., but it didn't work. so i accepted the fact that i need to format the external drive to make it work again, even if it means i will lose my 148 GB of important files on it. now i downloaded a data recovery software, to check if i can retrieve the files after i format it, i connected my other external drive, a 250 GB Western Digital, to free 148 GB of disk space for retrieving the files on the hard drive that has an issue, then, when i connected my 180 hard drive, the Autoplay popped-up, and it was detected properly on my computer. i checked on the files, and everything was working fine, like nothing happened. i then realized that my nephew connected the 250 GB external Hard Drive the same night before the issue happened. so what i think is, there was a driver conflict between the 2 hard drives. try to check if you connected other hard drives or removable disk drives on the computer before it happened. i'm not sure if it will help, but i was checking on this thread before when i had the issue, and i hope that it can help you guys. by the way, i'm using a computer running on Windows XP service pack 3.
 
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Like what for one?
 
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Same thing is happening with my wd my passport 1tb ultra. And it happen when i plugged in both my dongle and hard disk at same. I tried to open a movie that time and it stopped. Giving me 2 option "wait for the program to respond" and "close " i closed it but when i plugged in again it showed as local disk and i can't even touch it. I mean if i right click on it my computer slow down. And it say to format the drive.
 
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These things are awful I really hate living in this throw away consumer world.

Don't be mislead - planned obsolescence does not benefit the economy, it does nothing but benefit corporate fat cats who laugh all the way to the bank.
 
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I just lost hundreds of Gb of date on this piece of crap that costs hundreds of dollars! Are you kidding me?

Here's a tip for those of you that are past this stage, get a WD 500 Gb portable external hard drive - lots of them if you have to. Desktop externals will only ever result in a nightmare.

Hey Seagate - f*ck your useless piece of sh*t I'm getting my money back and telling everyone what pieces of sh*t you sell.
 
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I have the same problem (Sorry I don't know how to post in these forums and it shows up as solution?)

I have a Toshiba though because my last Seagate just stuffed up and wouldn't even work.

My Toshiba reads as Local Disk but when I plugged it in to my sisters laptop and my mates it worked perfectly fine. What's the problem here?
 
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lol I HAVE a WD 500.... and this just happened ot me, so dont get one
 
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I have 2 Western Digital (it's important to spell out their name completely so you never ever buy from these crooks) 500 Gb and 1Tb they are both crap. Ever since I bought them they both started beeping. You had to turn them upside down so that it gets detected. After 2 years of this crap now it stops beeping but it gets detected as local disk plus it's extremely slow. I can hardly copy paste or work on any files on that garbage disk. Never ever buy Western Digital or Seagate, etc. From my experience Iomega is just outstanding
 
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Thanks for the Iomega suggestion but in my opinion we as consumers simply can't win in this situation (planned obsolescence - what a silly, corporate ruled society we live in). Even our damn internal drives will die at some point. The best advice I can offer is to back up to DVD with a nice big CD wallet.

 
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Follow these steps it might work for you... Works for windows Vista/7/8/8.1
Might work for windows XP as well... Do try and give me the review for windows XP
Step 1: Open start menu and search for Command prompt.
Step 2: Right click on the command prompt and give it as RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
Step 3: When command prompt opens give the command as "chkdsk (DRIVER LETTER){like C, D, E etc etc whichever driver letter is assigned for the hard disk} DRIVER LETTER:/f
Here f is for FIX
Once this is done the Hard Disk must work perfectly fine then....
 
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This worked for my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB external drive. Was seriously about to rage. You just saved me years worth of irreplacable data. I owe you beer!

 
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