External hard drive shows "no media" in disk management

[kushking]

I recently bought 1TB LaCie external hard drive, worked fine until one day it stopped showing up in "My Computer". This might be due to my previous laptop crashing with the drive connected to it (I'm guessing).

It shows up in "disk management" but shows no media. I've tried connecting it into another computer and changing the drive letter but that doesn't seem to do anything. It doesn't show an option to format either. I've been looking for a solution to this for while now, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Petrossa]

Hi
It is possible that your external housing's controller board has given up the ghost.
You can always break the drive out of its housing and pop it in to an empty housing. I would pop it in to my pc first to check that the drive is ok.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey kushking. You could try @Petrossa's advice, but note that if the drive is under warranty, this would probably void it. But unfortunately this sounds like the most logical reason. If you have important data on it, you could try accessing the drive with a Linux Live CD/USB as well to see if you can open it and recover the files. You could also try some of the solutions from this thread here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html
If you decide to open the enclosure and connect it directly to your motherboard, I'd recommend that first you backup any important data which you might have on it. And then go ahead and download a diagnostic tool to test the drive as suggested above, to see what's the situation with it.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[kushking]

Thanks for the answers.

I'm not too bothered about recovering the files I had on my hard drive, there was nothing really important on it.

Does this mean the hard drive is broken? If so, do you think I can fix it or use the warranty to get it replaced.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there,

As you don't need the data that is stored on the drive, you can try formatting it through the command prompt the following way: https://www.techhack.co.uk/2011/03/31/format-a-hard-drive-with-command-prompt/
In case nothing works and your drive is still under warranty, it will be a good idea not to open the drive but just contact the manufacturer's Support and eventually RMA the drive.

Trying something simple as just connecting the drive with a different cable will not hurt.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[kushking]

I've tried formatting it using the command prompt but it still doesn't work. When I select the correct volume and enter "clean" it says there is "no media in the device", then when I try to create a partition it says there is "insufficient space on the drive".

Thanks

 

[D_Know_WD]

Then I guess it may be a good idea to contact the manufacturer's Support. They will help you to sort the issue out.

D_Know_WD