External hard disk able to open in tv but laptop

[AubreyChow]

I have 500GB Toshiba external hard disk, previously it works perfectly. Recently I cannot open it in my laptop, it only shows Drive G. It didnt show how many GB has been used out of 500GB. However I can read my file in my TV. I can listen the hard disk is spinning. It shows blue light when I connect to my laptop and white lights in my TV. Thanks guys

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, Aubrey.

Do you need to recover any of the data on that drive, or you just want to make it work with the laptop? Have you experienced any issues with it before?
Basically this is not an uncommon issue with drives that have been used with TVs, DVRs, media players, etc. What happens is that if the drive is formatted by that device it becomes inaccessible for a computer or a different device until you've reformatted it again by using a computer. Would you please post a screenshot of what you see about the drive in Disk Management (you can use imgur.com to upload the image)? Here's how to open it: How to access Disk Management in Windows to manage hard drives.

Other than that you should of course try the basic options as well - try the drive with a different computer and a different USB cable, to see if the same thing happens. If you don't need to recover data, you can also try testing it with its manufacturer's diagnostic tool (or a 3rd party one if the manufacturer doesn't offer such a tool), to see if there's anything unusual going on with the HDD.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[AubreyChow]

Thanks by the way.I need to have my data in my HDD. Here you go : http://imgur.com/ZUixhng Never have the issue before

Hey there, Aubrey.

Do you need to recover any of the data on that drive, or you just want to make it work with the laptop? Have you experienced any issues with it before?
Basically this is not an uncommon issue with drives that have been used with TVs, DVRs, media players, etc. What happens is that if the drive is formatted by that device it becomes inaccessible for a computer or a different device until you've reformatted it again by using a computer. Would you please post a screenshot of what you see about the drive in Disk Management (you can use imgur.com to upload the image)? Here's how to open it: How to access Disk Management in Windows to manage hard drives.

Other than that you should of course try the basic options as well - try the drive with a different computer and a different USB cable, to see if the same thing happens. If you don't need to recover data, you can also try testing it with its manufacturer's diagnostic tool (or a 3rd party one if the manufacturer doesn't offer such a tool), to see if there's anything unusual going on with the HDD.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Boogieman_WD]

It seems like Windows does not recognize the file system of the drive. All drives need a file system in order for your OS to be able to read/write data and basically even detect the information on them. In your case it says that the file system is RAW, which might mean that it could've become corrupted or there might be corrupted data, preventing your OS from recognizing the partition properly.

If your TV has a 2nd USB port and if you are able to copy data from one external drive to another, I'd recommend that you backup you important files by using your TV, since it can still read the drive. If that's not an option, you could still try the drive with a different computer and hope that it recognizes it properly to backup your files. Another option would be to try out data recover software: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html & http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm, or partition repair software.
Basically the idea is to be able to backup your data so that you know that it's safe and after that you could test the drive and reformat it, to see if everything is OK.

Please keep me posted and let me know if you have any questions.