External Hard Drive not showing up on my computer

[sara_54]

I have a Western Digital 2TB external hard drive. I was copying some stuff from it but it kept giving me errors (The request cannot be performed because of an I/O device error) so I unpluged it and tried to open it again only to find that it is not showing up on my computer. When I checked disk management I got an unknown disk with a little red x on it and it says not initialized. I have tried plugging it in another computer but it still shows the same problem.
I have a lot of data on this drive that I need to recover so if anyone has any idea how to fix this please let me know.

 

[Windows_95_XP]

I had a very similar problem with the exact type of drive that you're running into issues with. Unfortunately, the drive turned out to be dead.

Was the drive working before you started having this issue, or can you think of anything that may have happened to it? Does the drive make any buzzing or similar noises when plugged in?

 

[sara_54]

I had a very similar problem with the exact type of drive that you're running into issues with. Unfortunately, the drive turned out to be dead.

Was the drive working before you started having this issue, or can you think of anything that may have happened to it? Does the drive make any buzzing or similar noises when plugged in?

 

[sara_54]

I cannot think of anything that happened to it. It started showing me those error messages and when I removed it and tried again it did not show up. No buzzing or clicking sound either.

 

[Windows_95_XP]

I cannot think of anything that happened to it. It started showing me those error messages and when I removed it and tried again it did not show up. No buzzing or clicking sound either.

When did it start to show you the I/O device error messages? Was it right after you plugged it in or did it come out of nowhere?

 

[sara_54]

It came out of nowhere.

 

[Windows_95_XP]

It came out of nowhere.

I believe an I/O device error occurs when the system cannot read/copy a file when it is trying to access a disk (in this case, an external hard drive.) Some scenarios may be that your drive is dead (like mine was,) has a bad sector, or simply needs to be initialized again.

 

[Tech_TTT]

It came out of nowhere.

Hello ,

Open command prompt (Admin) (right click on start icon you will find it)

chkdsk [Drive:] /F

if it does not fix the problem , try

chkdsk [Drive:] /R

example , your external drive letter is E:

chkdsk E: /F