External Hard Drive problems

[jayden40]

HI, recently my usb 3 hard drive stopped working yesterday, Whenever I plug it into my computer I get an error saying "USB device not recognized" With a cuation triangle next to it. The drive is not showing up in windows explorer or device manager. It was working fine yesterday. Please help, I have over 800gb of games and other important stuff I don't want lose or redownload

BTW: Im using windows 10 and I tested the drive on a windows 7 laptop and still got the same error

 

[DigitalHamster]

Potentially there is an issue with the drive.
The first step is to unplug it and try it in another USB port.
If there is an external power source, make sure to plug it in.

If the USB device is recognized partially, then there is a good chance that you can see it in Device Manager (Get to it by typing in 'device' in the start menu then selecting Device Manager, then click to expand 'Disk drives').

To test if the actual hard drive is working, listen to it.
If you hear beeps or clicking, this is not good 🙁
If it spins up to full speed and then has a quiet whirring sound, this is good. This means that the drive is spinning up correctly.

 

[jayden40]

Potentially there is an issue with the drive.
The first step is to unplug it and try it in another USB port.
If there is an external power source, make sure to plug it in.

If the USB device is recognized partially, then there is a good chance that you can see it in Device Manager (Get to it by typing in 'device' in the start menu then selecting Device Manager, then click to expand 'Disk drives').

To test if the actual hard drive is working, listen to it.
If you hear beeps or clicking, this is not good 🙁
If it spins up to full speed and then has a quiet whirring sound, this is good. This means that the drive is spinning up correctly.

I tried using a different wire, The wire that the hard drive is using is "Y" cable to usb 3.0. I also tried using an usb 2.0 port but it still had the same problem. When I restart my computer, all it does is a slow spin, then stop, then another slow spin, then it stops again. There is no beeping or clicking

Update: I plugged the drive into my laptop And I still got the same effect, But I was able to see the hard drive in devices and printers. I right clicked it, I pressed properties and I went to the hardware tab. On the bottom of the tab it says

Device status: This device cannot start (Code 10)

2nd Update: I did the same thing on my desktop and got a different error, This time its code 43

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there jayden40,

Is the drive recognized by Disk Management? In case it is not, you will not be able to access it with software tools.

Taking into account all of the things you've tried, it looks like that there's something wrong with the enclosure or the HDD itself.

Is the drive under warranty? In case it is, you can just RMA it.
If the data stored on the drive is really important, you may need to look for some professional help.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD