seagate 1TB expansion portable hard drive has a blue blinking light

[Paul Hibbert]

I was able to use it and know for some reason I cant In my computer it is shown as local disk f. It is shown in device manager. My computer has started to freeze up when I plug it in and all I get is a blue blinking light, any help?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Paul. This does not sound very good indeed. I'd recommend that you try the drive with another computer and a different USB cable (not longer than 12"). Hopefully the cable has become faulty or something. Do you have any important data on it? If "yes" I'd recommend that you backup everything if you can still access it. If not you could try taking the drive out of the enclosure and connecting it directly to the motherboard to get your data out, but note that this will probably void the warranty of the drive. This might work if the problem is due to it's external enclosure.
It would also be helpful if you could download the manufacturer's diagnostic tool and test the drive with it, but not before you recover any that which you might need from it.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Paul Hibbert]

It seems to have been when I went up to windows 8.1. Gone back to 8 but just no luck. I tried it through my tv to watch movies and it worked fine. If it wont work in another computer ill try take it out like you say. Yes there is a lot of important things on it. Fingers crossed and thanks for your answer.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

If it worked fine with the TV it sounds like it should be OK with another computer. There might be some issues with your USB ports. Have you tried other external drives with the same computer since the issue occurred to see if the same thing happens again?
I hope that everything turns out fine with the HDD so that you can safely backup your data.

 

[Paul Hibbert]

Another hard drive worked fine. My laptop has windows 8 and when it did an update it went funny. I have taken it round to a friends house who has windows 7, he managed after many attempts to get chkdsk to work and re-place orphaned files like the boot, log file etc. Scanned it with seagate tools know and done scans and seems to be fine. Thanks for all the info provided. Might get a WD drive. Never had any issues with my old one.