[leader 2]

Hi. I appreciate any help anyone here can give in advance. Sorry for the length of this post, but I tried to thoroughly explain the problem. I am not technical so please use laymens terms when replying. Thanks for your understanding.

 

I have a 8tb external hard drive called Western Digital WD Elements. It has been working fine for months now with no issues. I have several terabytes of info on it  and would sync it with a 2nd WD Elements 8tb drive on a regular basis. 

 

Just now about 15 minutes ago I turned on my surge protector that I use with both 8tb WD Elements (I have another surge protector that has my computer tower and monitor connected to it. My secondary 8tb drive (with drive letter E) came on and was recognized and had all my files on it as did another 6tb external drive I have. But my main 8tb (with drive letter F) was not plugged in to the surge protector so I plugged it in. Then it gave a message I have never seen before on it and worried me about my data on it. It said  You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it. I use Windows 10 pro. The drive before today showed the blue bar going across indicating how much space was used and the drive showed the name and drive letter since it was working properly. When I double clicked it just now, it then gave this error: 

 

F:\ is not accessible

 

The volume does not contain a recognized file system

Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted

 

What is going on? The drive worked just fine last night and now this? What can I do to fix it so that it works fine again like before? 

Edited by leader 2, 16 May 2020 - 08:32 AM.

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Best Answer

I would do the following and then cross my fingers;

 

Leave everything connected to the computer as it is now.

 

Correctly shutdown Windows.

 

Disconnect all computer components from the mains power/wall socket power outlet.

 

Press the computers power on button for 20 seconds or so to get rid of any residual charge in the system.

 

Reconnect everything, power up and hope that all your external storage devices are detected by Windows once it has booted.

[phillpower2]

Best Answer

I would do the following and then cross my fingers;

 

Leave everything connected to the computer as it is now.

 

Correctly shutdown Windows.

 

Disconnect all computer components from the mains power/wall socket power outlet.

 

Press the computers power on button for 20 seconds or so to get rid of any residual charge in the system.

 

Reconnect everything, power up and hope that all your external storage devices are detected by Windows once it has booted.

[leader 2]

Thank you so much! I plugged it back in and now the hard drive is showing up. May I ask what causes this problem? Is static electricity or something built up inside the computer that interferes with the hard drive working normally?

[phillpower2]

You are welcome and we are pleased to hear that all is now well with the external HDD 

 

As to the cause of the issue, couple of possibilities and that was why it was suggested to both shutdown Windows and isolate power to the hardware altogether, if I had to say one thing over the other, in this instance I would say that it was Windows not playing nice with the drive because the drive was not present when Windows was loaded.