Laptop not detecting external solid state drive.

KoiNoYokanX

Commendable
Sep 15, 2016
3
0
1,510
After my laptop failed to power on, I took out my solid state drives and tried to access the files externally. I attached my sandisk mx100 to a Toshiba External USB 3.0 controller board with a micro usb 3.0 cable into my other laptop which is an Inspiron 17 5000 laptop running on Windows 10. Unfortunately I'm unable to access my files. When I check the device manager it shows the Toshiba External USB 3.0 Device under 'Disk Drives', but I don't see the drive under 'Disk Management'. I tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it, to no avail. When I swapped the solid state drive in the Inspiron for the mx100 I got the error that no bootable devices were found. Please advise.

Thanks in advance
 
Solution
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @KoiNoYokanX!

I'd recommend try the button 'Rescan Disks' in Disk Management and see if the external drive will pop up there afterwards. I'd also suggest you check if it's going to get properly recognized in another PC/laptop as well. This will help us determine what might be the source of the issue. I'd also suggest you check how the SSD would appear if you plug it via a SATA-to-USB cable directly, instead of the third-party manufacturer's enclosure.
Swapping your internal SSD with this one is not a good idea. You get the 'No bootable device was found' error because this external solid-state drive doesn't contain the operating system (Windows 10).
Instead, try using the drive on another computer (if you have access to one) and instead of swapping the OS/bootable drive, plug it as a secondary drive and see if you will be able to access your files from there.

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting.
SuperSoph_WD
 

KoiNoYokanX

Commendable
Sep 15, 2016
3
0
1,510


Hi SuperSoph,

Thanks for the reply. The Toshiba controller board was able to detect my Sandisk MX100 and I was able to back up files I have on it. However when I plug in my second solid state drive, a Samsung 850 EVO, I get the error 'you must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it'.

I tried swapping the internal SSD (Sandisk Z400s) with the Sandisk MX100 and Samsung 850 EVO, because both do have Windows 10 Installed. My now defunct laptop dual booted them, so I could choose from which solid state drive I wanted to boot windows 10. The defunct 17r SE laptop had no issues booting from these 2 solid state drives which it ran internally, but it randomly shut down the other day and wouldn't turn back on. I suspect it may be that the charger failed even though the inner cables still appear to be intact (though it doesn't show the led light).



 
It does sound like the issue is coming from somewhere else now. :( Have you tried booting with just tha battery or without it only through the charger?
Another thing you should definitely try is taking out the battery, removing the power supply (charger) and then hold the power button down for about 30 seconds. Afterwards, put back only the power supply and attempt to boot the laptop (WITHOUT the battery). If it manages to power up properly, put the battery back in.

Hope it works.
SuperSoph_WD
 

KoiNoYokanX

Commendable
Sep 15, 2016
3
0
1,510


I tried all the above but my Inspiron 17R SE wouldn't power on. However, I think I did notice the led ring on the charger flash blue for a split second, so I suspect I need a new charger.

What I don't understand is, why can I access my files externally on my MX100 ssd using the Toshiba controller board (which I think is the only thing I have to connect my ssds externally), but not the Samsung 850 EVO. I googled the 'you must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it' message and apparently it means that there's no data on it? That makes no sense, since I used it to boot windows before when it was inside the 17r SE. I installed MiniTool Partition Wizard and it couldn't detect the partition. It then suggested I'd try Power Data Recover, and that program crashes when ssd is plugged in. EaseUs didnt detect the drive at all. Maybe the Samsung EVO is incompatible with the Toshiba controller board? Or maybe something became corrupted? I hope I didn't lose all my files on the Samsung SSD.
 


You can also use a SATA-to-USB cable to plug the SSDs externally due to the fact they are 2.5" and don't need any additional power supply than that. I believe that you have trouble recognizing the second SSD through the enclosure due to the fact that it's configured with different LBAs. Many enclosures require you to format the drives you put in them because of this. So in order to use the second SSD through that same enclosure you will need to format it. However, if you plug it internally via SATA you should be able to use it and see the contents on it without any issues. So my guess is that your data is still there, you just need to use a different kind of connection on order to access it.

I'd strongly recommend backing everything up somewhere else as well, so that you don't suffer the consequences of any potential data loss while swapping between the connections to the SSDs.

SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution