External Hdd Suddenly Not Recognized In Windows (10) Explorer. Now What?

I am running an older all-in-1 pc with Windows 10. I have several external HDDs (Element or Passport) attached at any one time. About a year ago, I selected one of the drives in explorer and got an error that the drive was removed or unreadable (I don't recall the exact message - but I cannot access or even find that drive). I unplugged it and figured that data was just gone.

Happened again to another drive. These things are, like, 3 to 5 TB of data so they aren't just nothing. After this last one I looked into what I could do. I'm certainly not spending north of $500 to recover data. I tried Disk Drill which cannot find either drive. I tried Victoria537 which also cannot find either drive. I could buy a drive enclosure like they show in YouTube videos but whom am I kidding?

What should I do? Buy me an enclosure drive and kid myself? I mean, if I break it even further the thing is useless now anyway.

Thanks for whatever you can suggest to a functional idiot.

 

Tried them on another PC? Do they seem to power up? If you don't have any lights or indicators, hold the drive, you should feel it wobble as the drive is spinning.
Then try "shucking" removing the drive from the case and get another adapter to test them.

 

They power up. I see the light and if I touch the case I can feel a slight vibration of it spinning. No clicking or other troubling noise.

It does the same thing if I connect it to another pc. They cannot be accessed via chkdsk. If I download disk drill it can see them but it just says the drive is unhealthy. I can't do anything with disk drive unless I buy the pro version and the reviews of this product are not encouraging.

Thanks for your response. I forgot I posted this.

 

Same port. Tried new usb cable and different pc. Same result. Here are my computer specs:
Computer Profile Summary
Computer Name: Andycunninghamd (in WORKGROUP) — HP Pavilion Dad got for his birthday and had in his office
Profile Date: Sunday, December 14, 2025 6:38:37 PM
Advisor Version: 13.1
Windows Logon: Dad
Try BelManage, the Enterprise version of the Belarc Advisor
Personal Home Use Only
Operating System
Windows 10 Home (x64) Version 22H2 (build 19045.6466)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 6/25/2017 5:16:36 PM
Servicing Channel: General Availability
Boot Mode: UEFI with successful Secure Boot
System Model
HP 24-b217c
System Serial Number: 8CC7031DF7
Asset Tag: 8CC7031DF7
Enclosure Type: All-in-One
Processor a
2.40 gigahertz Intel Core i5-7400T
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1 megabyte secondary memory cache
6 megabyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Not hyper-threaded
Main Circuit Board b
Board: HP 82DC 1100
Serial Number: PGBKU0A8J614DM
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
UEFI: AMI F.34 06/20/2019
Local Storage
10.00 Terabytes Usable Local Storage Capacity
5.71 Terabytes Local Storage Free Space

Internal Drives† Size Type Serial Number Drive# Status*
WDC WD10EZEX-60WN4A0 1.00 TB HDD WD-WCC6Y1VUN1SY 0 Healthy
USB Attached Drives
Elements 2667 5.00 TB HDD WX22D7122D5U 3 Healthy
Elements 2667 5.00 TB HDD WX12D71CJ6F3 1 Healthy
Expansion HDD 28.00 TB 00000000NT17SJZA 2 Healthy
My Passport 25E2 4.00 TB HDD WXV1EA519WUD 4 Healthy
Other Drives
hp PLDS DVDRW DU8AESH [Optical drive]

† Mouse over a drive model name for details
* Status reported only for SMART enabled drives
Memory c,d
11.89 Gigabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM0' has 8 GB (serial number 347DEDC8)
Slot 'DIMM1' has 4 GB (serial number 92506125)

32 Gigabytes Maximum System Memory Capacity
Local Storage Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0) * 986.79 GB 114.08 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) 12.09 GB 1.23 GB free
h: (NTFS on drive 4) 4.00 TB 1.79 TB free
l: (NTFS on drive 1) 5.00 TB 3.80 TB free
* Operating System is installed on c:
Network Storage Volumes
None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details)
local user accounts last logon
Dad 12/3/2025 4:37:02 AM (admin)
local system accounts
X Administrator 1/21/2017 3:51:37 PM (admin)
X DefaultAccount never
X Guest never
HomeGroupUser$ never
X WDAGUtilityAccount never
X Marks a disabled account; L Marks a locked account
Printers
Amyuni Document Converter 400 on nul:
Brother HL-L5100DN series on USB001
Foxit PhantomPDF Printer Driver on FOXIT_PDF:
Microsoft Print To PDF on PORTPROMPT:
Microsoft Shared Fax Driver on SHRFAX:
Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4 on PORTPROMPT:
Send to Microsoft OneNote 16 Driver on nul:
Controllers
Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
Display
Intel(R) HD Graphics 630 [Display adapter]
NVIDIA GeForce 930MX [Display adapter]
HP ALL-in-One [Monitor] (24.0"vis, s/n LM238WF1-SLE1, January 2015)
Bus Adapters
Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller
Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft)
Multimedia
Intel(R) Display Audio
NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Realtek High Definition Audio
Steam Streaming Microphone
Steam Streaming Speakers
Virus Protection
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Version 5.4.5.226
Virus Definitions Version Up To Date
Last Disk Scan on Monday, December 8, 2025 2:29:19 PM
Realtime File Scanning On
Spybot - Search and Destroy
Virus Definitions Version Not Up To Date
Realtime File Scanning Off

 

Any luck with the drives?

Do you have any other computers that AREN'T running Win 10/11 ? Maybe a good running Win 7, XP and/or even a Linux that you could try the drives on? Asking as I am wondering IF it might be caused by a Win 10 and/or 11 defect/error/glitch and maybe a hardware defect/failure on that computer.

I know this software is old (got it from Office Max back in 2008 for $50. Got my money's worth out of it and then some) but IF you can get a copy of a program called "Partition Commander 10 PROFESSIONAL" (or a newer version, as this version was good up to XP, & Linux, though I have used it some on Win 7) to see IF it can see and then access the drives. Maybe even allow you to fix or undelete/recover the partition/partition tables and/or fix/repair the MBR as needed. It comes with a CD/DVD that you can either boot from and/or install and run in Windows. This program has gotten me out of quite a few jams as well as come in handy for various drive work/manipulations.

 

No. Everything is Windows 10. Would Partition Commander 10 work on a drive the Explorer cannot see? Does that software do repairs? I don't want to lose more date than I might have lost already.

Thanks for taking time to respond.

 

Just a heads up, as of this post I saw a good condition "Partition Commander 10 PROFESSIONAL" Complete with Original box, owners manual and disc) on Ebay for $15 + s/h and taxes. The listing has decent enough pics of the box so that you could check out the listed software features/functions. No affiliation to seller.

 

To answer your question, IIRC I have sometimes been able to see/find a MIA drive, likely done outside of Windows booting from the program's CD instead of the software installed in Windows (IF you get it try it both ways). But I can't and won't guarantee you will be able to do so with your drives. Do note that this version is for up to XP/2000, in the manual Vista is mentioned when it talks about file systems and NTFS. IIRC and am fairly certain I have used it in Win 7, though may need compatibility mode. I can't guarantee it will install and work correctly on Win 10. So if you have access to an older system with XP or 7 and/or could dual boot your system or do a VM with XP Pro or 7 Pro it would be best. The newer version is good up to Win 8.1 but don't know IF it's on CD or IF a download file.

On the drives I have used it on, I haven't lost data (used it to repair/restore/recover lost/deleted partitions/partition tables and sometimes fix boot tables and MBR. But do note it doesn't always work. That said IF used wrong it is possible to loose data, though that is true of other software also. It can be used to backup/copy/clone data/drives. I've also used it to change drive type so I could use an inexpensively gotten server HDD as a regular drive to do a bootable OS.

What I am thinking and hoping is the drive's partition record/boot record got damaged/corrupted/lost/deleted causing the drives to not be able to be seen by Win 10/OS.

How many of the drives are still in Warranty?

 

Thanks for all of that.

Only the largest drive is under warranty. As posted earlier, Seagate has said they will try to recover the data but I almost would rather take my chances with this community than send it to Seagate. I don't know that they have sufficient motivation to try hard to recover the data. It matters a lot to me. I doubt it matters much to them.

 

I hear you. I did try changing ports, cables, computers, etc.