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External USB hard drive disappears --can only be explored from Computer Management

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First post, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Since this incident I've been busy backing up my data and reinstalling my computers. For that purpose I've bought a new 2 Terabyte 3.5" Seagate hard drive, enclosed in an external USB enclosure of unknown brand. Yet the enclosure is heavy, has a cooling fan on it, and made of metal instead of polymer. I've been consolidating my backups in that new hard drive ever since.

Tonight I'm reinstalling a computer with USB keyboard --unlike my other PCs which have PS2 keyboard. After I finished installing Windows, I plugged the said external hard drive, yet Windows refuse to recognize that drive. Also, turning on the computer with the hard drive plugged in results in infinitely long startup screen. Only after turning off the enclosure manually, Windows would show the logon screen. It's Windows XP SP2, by the way.

I then plugged the said external hard drive to another computer --also fresh installed, and also has Windows XP SP2 as its O/S. Yesterday, this one computer has no problem recognizing the external hard drive. After all, that was how I returned all the data to the computer --the data that I backed up before re-installation. Now, however, the computer takes noticeably longer time to recognize the hard drive. Also, the drive letter disappears. 😵

At first, I became panic, because the said hard drive contains all my data. Yes, consolidated backups from each and every computer that I have. However, the drive and its drive letter exists in Windows XP's Computer Management. It's drive W:, by the way, which I manually assigned yesterday.

0001%20-%20hard%20disk%20exists%20in%20disk%20management_zpsyvtpypip.jpg
The external hard drive and its drive letter (W:) can be seen in Computer Management.

But of course, drive W: doesn't exist in Explorer.

0002%20-%20but%20it%20doesnt%20exist%20in%20Windows%20Explorer_zpslhecwwvb.jpg
But in Windows Explorer, the hard drive just disappears.

I found out the only way for me to see the contents of drive W: is to explore the drive from Computer Management.

0003%20-%20the%20only%20way%20to%20explore%20the%20disk_zpsybp2mwoc.jpg
The only way to see the disk's contents.

However, here's the problem: as soon as Computer Management opens a new Windows Explorer window (after I clicked 'Explore'), Windows Explorer very quickly moves to the latest previous drive letter --which is drive F: in this case (drive G: and H: cannot be explored because they're Nero virtual drives without any images mounted). Only after clicking the 'Back' button in Windows Explorer, I can then see the contents of drive W:. However, Windows Explorer's address bar shows 'My Computer' instead of 'W:\'.

0005%20-%20the%20hard%20drives%20root%20folder_zps7cbnyoau.jpg
Windows Explorer's address bar doesn't show the drive letter, but the drive contents are shown, like 'INSTALLER' and 'Kresfile' folder.

However, if I explore a folder in the drive W:, the drive letter is shown on Windows Explorer's address bar, followed by the folder name. An example is the picture below, which shows 'W:\INSTALLER' as I explore the folder.

0004%20-%20inside%20a%20folder_zpsnfm0bfwp.jpg
W:\INSTALLER is shown as I explore the folder INSTALLER in the drive.

So, in shorts, I can backup the new external hard drive (drive W:\). In fact, I'm doing it now, with TeraCopy. However, I just cannot explore the drive from Windows Explorer --I can only explore it from Computer Management --> Disk Management, and even then, it requires the tricks I've described above (pressing the 'Back' button on Windows Explorer). Also, if I leave drive W:\, let say, because I want to explore drive F:\, I simply can't return to W:\. I have to explore the drive from Computer Management again.

So, what's the problem? A virus seems to be unlikely, because I have disabled Autorun on each and every computer that I own. Also, the said drive W:\ doesn't contain autorun.inf or any suspicious files. And yes, I always set Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders, as well as hidden system files.

My guess is that the hard drive enclosure got damaged when I inserted it to the said computer above (the one --and the only one-- with USB keyboard), causing weird behavior like disappearing drive letter and the likes. I hope the hard drive inside doesn't get damaged though. Seagate is pretty much durable, isn't it?

Any suggestions?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 1 of 13, by Stojke

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Any suggestions?

Important data : 2 or 3 backup places
Not easy to obtain data : 1 or 2 backup places
Currently working on data : 1 backup place
Crap : Current active storage

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Reply 2 of 13, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Stojke wrote:
Important data : 2 or 3 backup places Not easy to obtain data : 1 or 2 backup places Currently working on data : 1 backup place […]
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Any suggestions?

Important data : 2 or 3 backup places
Not easy to obtain data : 1 or 2 backup places
Currently working on data : 1 backup place
Crap : Current active storage

Backing it up right now, there will be 2 backup place after I finish.

Anyway, what's the cause of all of this? Is this new enclosure really a crap? Or is it the hard drive?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 3 of 13, by Stojke

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I doubt the enclosure could cause this problem, it sounds more like an file system problem or windows xp (old system simptome) problem.

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Reply 4 of 13, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Stojke wrote:

I doubt the enclosure could cause this problem, it sounds more like an file system problem or windows xp (old system simptome) problem.

But what caused it? I mean, will my data be safe in the future? Should I replace the enclosure? Besides making more than one backup, what else should I do? If I know the cause, then I could anticipate any future problem (s).

Anyway, I just discovered Windows Explorer shows the hard drive's file system as raw, yet Computer Management shows it as NTFS. What could possibly happen?

0006%20-%20RAW%20file%20system_zpstpqdtpyc.jpg
But I can still read and copy the data, so is it really RAW?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 5 of 13, by chinny22

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My guess (and it is 100% a guess) is that its due the way the drive is formatted/partitioned.
You know like how Windows cant see 2 partitions on a USB drive, or 2 active partitions, something like that.

I guess you could plug the hard drive directly to your computer and see if it does the same thing. Although as its no longer connecting via USB the rules completely change again.

What OS did you originally format the external drive on? If it was XP then it is indeed strange?

Reply 6 of 13, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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chinny22 wrote:
My guess (and it is 100% a guess) is that its due the way the drive is formatted/partitioned. You know like how Windows cant see […]
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My guess (and it is 100% a guess) is that its due the way the drive is formatted/partitioned.
You know like how Windows cant see 2 partitions on a USB drive, or 2 active partitions, something like that.

I guess you could plug the hard drive directly to your computer and see if it does the same thing. Although as its no longer connecting via USB the rules completely change again.

What OS did you originally format the external drive on? If it was XP then it is indeed strange?

Well, I only have 1 partition in my external drive, it's just a habit.

Anyway.... I'm not sure, I wasn't the one who formatted the hard drive. Yes, I remember now, the hard drive was formatted by the store keeper whom I bought it from, and it seems he used Windows 7 or above. Does it matter? I mean, NTFS is NTFS, no? Or am I wrong?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 7 of 13, by mrau

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i have 2 ideas, damaged registry entry responsible for showing this partition ID with letter W: and damaged explorer metadatata stored in hidden files on that drive;

Reply 8 of 13, by chinny22

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

NTFS is NTFS, no? Or am I wrong?

Not quite, I only know because WinNT4 couldn't read later 2000 or 2003 NTFS partitions unless service pack was applied.
But don't think that's the issue here, Still I like to prepare drives on the earliest OS being used just to be sure.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/w … =w7itproinstall

Reply 9 of 13, by mrau

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if the label or the fs were wrong, browsing the data would not be possible i think, especially the explorers behavior sounds like fishy metadata

Reply 10 of 13, by Davros

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could it be you have a GPT formatted disk

Will end-users see the ESP, MSR, and OEM-specific partitions?
The user will not see these partitions exposed in Windows Explorer, nor is any recognized file system exposed to legacy programs such as Context Indexing. The ESP, OEM-specific, and other unrecognized partitions will be visible only in the Disk Management MMC snap-in since they will not have a recognizable file system.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... _xp32_boot

Last edited by Davros on 2016-03-27, 04:30. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 11 of 13, by clueless1

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Another possibility is bad USB cable or the USB-to-SATA controller in the drive enclosure. Those sometimes go bad. If that happens, I usually pull the drive out of the enclosure and either put it in another enclosure or convert it to an internal drive. Not sure that is your case, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

edit: Also, Seagate has had a rough go with some of their drive models (mostly 1.5TB and 2TB models):
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-rel … bility-q3-2015/
Backblaze has been publishing HDD reliability reports for a couple of years and Hitachi's seem to be the most reliable over multiple models, followed by Western Digtial. Seagate's newest drives seem to be doing better though:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-rel … bility-q4-2015/

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Reply 12 of 13, by ZellSF

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If he can browse the drive, just having trouble finding it, I doubt it's any sort of hardware failure, file system failure or unsupported formats.

If he sometimes had trouble finding it but not always, or if some files had readability issues then I would start to worry about hardware.

But right now the symptoms point to something software related. Are you sure you've not hidden the drive letter earlier? What if you assign your removable drive to a drive letter you know works (D,E,F,G,H)?

Reply 13 of 13, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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So I have copied all my files, and then plugged the hard drive to the third computer, which is also a freshly installed Windows XP. Guess what? Now Windows Explorer properly detected the hard drive as W: Then, out of curiosity, I plugged back the hard drive to the second computer --that is, the computer described in the OP, whose Windows Explorer cannot explorer drive W: Guess what? Now it works!

But it only makes me scared, because I don't know what the problem is. At least if I knew exactly what happened, I could take prevention steps for the future.

Like I said in the OP, it all started when I plugged the hard drive into the first computer --the one with USB keyboard. The computer took literally forever to recognize the hard drive, that I had to manually turn off the hard drive to continue booting. Anyway, the first computer --the one that caused all of this-- has Biostar A780L3G motherboard, Radeon HD 7850 GPU, SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze PSU, and USB keyboard. I plugged in the hard drive to install the drivers, yet this particular PC takes so long to recognize the drive. 🙁

I also have the fourth computer --another Biostar A780L3G mobo-- which doesn't use USB keyboard, and it recognizes the hard drive without problem.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

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