Windows Won't Recognize External Hard Drive - Spawned Additional Issus Grrrr

Greetings Geeks -

My system: i5 4670k, * gigs o' RAM, ASrock H81M motherboard, RTX 2060, WIndows 10.

I purchased a 1TB Seagate Backup Slim Plus external drive. When I plug it into the computer, I get the recognition chime. Despite this acknowledgement, the drive does not show up in "This PC" or any other directory. So, my first stop is Device Manager....

Device Manager does display the drive and indicates it is working properly. Despite this fact, when I examine the properties window of the drive all of the information is blank. At one point I received a message asking me to format but I had no idea exactly what drive it was prompting me and the hardware should work without additional formatting regardless; In addition, I might end up sending the thing back and I do not want to send a reformatted drive. I attempted to update the drivers, and I search, but it tells the me the drivers from 2006 are the most recent!? Off to Disk Management . . .

I figured there may be a drive assignment conflict. If so, I would change the drive assignment. But the device does not even shoe up in Disk Management. Off to Windows update . . .

I attempt to install a pending Windows update. Updated loop of death despite multiple attempts. I had to revert. Okay . . . .

Compounding this is the fact that my display would read "No Signal" randomly during all of this. I had to unplug the HDMI, switch ends between the PC and the monitor to reestablish a signal. Not only that . . .

My mouse would stop working when I plugged in the drive. I would have randomly swap USB ports to get them to play nice together. As far as I can see their are no USB conflicts in the Control Panel.

This is not my only simple hardware\upgrade story. I am cursed it seems.

I am losing my mind. This drive should work by just plugging it in. I am determined to get it working as opposed to sending it back. So, does anyone have any suggestions? I did try Seagte's troubleshooting, which was similar, to no avail.

 

Hi plodr -

Thank you for the advice. I tried much of that, but I will double check. I do believe the Device Manager may have stated "RAW" or Unallocated." I will check. If so, then I guess you are right, it is useless. I had reservations buying a Seagate drive. I have been building computers and working with them for 30 years and every single drive I have had problems with over those decades has been Seagate. I typically buy Western Digital, but this drive was cheap.

Thanks again for responding, I appreciate your time.

 

'Raw' does not mean all is lost. You can copy off data with 'testdisk' by cgsecurity, and then see if the drive can be reformatted. In 30 yrs I'm sure you've heard of 'testdisk'. It's still here.

 

Of course I have, been now my system does not even see the drive. I did not want to reformat the drive anyway in case I did decide to send it back, which now I am going to do exactly that. The drive is totally unrecognizable now. I packed it up and it is ready to be sent back. I have already ordered a Western Digital replacement.

 

Yeah, I knew you said it was new and probably sending it back.

I just didn't want any one reading this to think that 'Raw' meant 'useless' or all was lost. It may take work but always a possibility to recover data.
All is good.

 

Got. The drive was new, so I did not have any data on it. The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to think it is a USB issue with my computer. Thank you for the follow up.