Hard drive not working

[Tomazzer]

I have an external hard drive I am having problems with, I formatted it and created a healthy partition. It doesn't show up in my computer and when hard drive is plugged in, the computer runs really slow and apps and folders don't open, then when I unplug the hard drive, all the apps and folders I clicked on open, help please????

 

[Ralston18]

Tom,

How is the external hard drive connected? USB I expect. Motherboard or USB card? Good cable I trust?

Also: Go to "Start" and open the Resource Monitor via "perfmon /res" without the quotes of course.

Take a look at everything that is running and then unplug the hard drive. You should be able to identify whatever is taking up your systems resources while the external hard drive is in use.

Please post your findings. Thanks.

 

[Tomazzer]

Can't find anything out of the ordinary, schost.exe is taking up the most. How can I make the computer recognise the hard drive?

 

[Ralston18]

If the hard drive is not being recognized there are some other questions to be answered:

Please confirm you are using USB connectivity. Versus the hard drive being a standalone NAS of some sort via ethernet.

Have you tried other USB ports?

What does Task Manager indicate?

Did you format the hard drive on the host computer?

What OS are you running, what size is the HDD, and what formatting did you use. Just one partition - correct?

 

[Tomazzer]

It has been recognised but it took over an hour, I clicked the icon to safely remove it and unplugged and plugged back in again. I was using the hard drive for movies then I decided to format it as I had seen them all. I formatted by using disk management, when I first done the format it worked and it was recognised, I put a few files on it to make sure, then I deleted them, the next day I I plugged it back in and that's where it started. It's a 1TB WDmy passport. I am using Toshiba satellite laptops, one with Windows 7,the other with xp, I tend to use 7 more

 

[Ralston18]

Very good that you waited for the "safe to remove" message - however, I always give it another minute or so just to be sure. Especially with older devices and software.

Not sure what to go forward with doing:

One thought is to make sure that you have the most recent firmware installed on the hard drive (go to WD's website and search for your specific model). At least check to see if the firmware is current....

You could also try running WD's diagnostic software just to see if that notes any problems with drive. Or some other disk diagnostic software.

Since there is really no data on the drive, you may want to proceed with another full format per the Windows 7 (which you use most) instructions also provided on WD's website.

From my viewpoint, I would probably run the diagnostic first for whatever that process may be worth.

Then do another format.

If those actions do not solve the problem install the newest firmware update. And try it all again.

Time-consuming but you may be able to fix it. Could be that the drive may be about to fail......