{"id":94,"date":"2009-02-24T22:12:16","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T17:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2022-03-01T16:06:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T11:06:13","slug":"external-hard-drive-troubleshooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/device-errors\/external-hard-drive-troubleshooting","title":{"rendered":"External Hard Drive Troubleshooting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>External hard disks are popular devices for storing data that needs to be portable. If you do not have a laptop or do not want to bring it, an external hard drive can be the solution. Another popular use of external disks is to make backups on an external hard disk. Hard disks have become relatively cheap and with a USB (or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serial_ATA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eSata<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/FireWire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FireWire<\/a>) connection, the data transfer rates are high. And with a fast USB 3 port and a SSD inside instead of a HDD, usage is almost as fast as an internal disk.<\/p>\n<p>But when you use an external hard disk with a Windows PC, whether it is Windows XP, Windows 7, or a later Windows version, problems can arise. Most can be resolved by restarting or unplugging and re-plugging the external hard disk, but not all external disk problems can be solved that way. We looked at the &#8216;<em>external hard disk not recognized<\/em>&#8216; type of problems.<br \/>\nIn the case of an external hard disk that is connected through a USB port, you may get the error:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message.<\/p>\n<p>Clicking the message tells you nothing more than the fact that the USB device is not recognized.<\/p>\n<p>You may also simply see a &#8220;USB Mass Storage Device&#8221; in the &#8220;Other Devices&#8221; category of the Device Manager.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few things to try when Windows does not recognize your external hard disk:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, make sure the right drivers are installed if any came with the drive. If you don&#8217;t have the drivers, you can try a <a href=\"http:\/\/devicedriverfinder.com\/driverfinder.php\">driver update program<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In the case of Windows XP, make sure you have Service Pack 2 or higher installed. For Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is required. For Windows Vista Service Pack 1 should be installed, and Windows 7 this is not relevant.<\/li>\n<li>Try a different USB cable.<\/li>\n<li>Turn off the power of the drive briefly and then turn it on again.<\/li>\n<li>Check in your system&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/BIOS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bios<\/a> that your PC is configured for plug-and-play and make sure that the USB compatibility in the Bios is properly configured. Often you can select between USB 1 (or legacy support) and USB 2.0 (high speed). For external drives, USB 2.0 is required in most cases.<\/li>\n<li>If using a USB hub, try plugging the external hard drive in a USB port directly on the system, not using the USB hub.<\/li>\n<li>Unplug all other USB devices apart from the external hard disk. Compatibility or insufficient power can be the cause of problems.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;\" title=\"Windows Device Conflicts\" src=\"http:\/\/devicedriverfinder.com\/images\/device-errors.jpg\" alt=\"Device conflicts in Device Manager\" \/><\/li>\n<li>If the external hard disk has a master\/slave switch or jumper, try changing the setting.<\/li>\n<li>Try updating your system\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drivers. Motherboard drivers can help solve issues with the USB controller on the motherboard.<\/li>\n<li>Check the <strong>Device Manager<\/strong> to make sure no <strong>Unknown<\/strong> device or <strong>Other<\/strong> device is listed with errors. The drive should be listed under <strong>Disk drives<\/strong>.\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;\" title=\"Device Manager USB Hard Disk\" src=\"http:\/\/devicedriverfinder.com\/images\/external-disk-in-device-manager.jpg\" alt=\"External Hard Disk\" width=\"383\" height=\"377\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>Try uninstalling all <strong>USB Root Hub<\/strong> devices in the <strong>Device Manager<\/strong> under the <strong>Universal Serial Bus Controller <\/strong>group. They will be reinstalled when you reboot. That can sometimes help fix USB configuration issues.<\/li>\n<li>Check the driver letter assignment to make sure there is no driver letter conflict. In <strong>Disk Management<\/strong>, right-click the external hard disk and assign a drive letter that is not in use. Do not forget to consider mapped network drives!<\/li>\n<li>Make sure the disk is formatted, an uninitialized disk will not show up in Windows Explorer. Use the Disk Manager to partition and format the drive.<br \/>\nSimply right-click <strong>My Computer<\/strong> and in the popup menu, select <strong>Manage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;\" title=\"Vista Disk Management\" src=\"http:\/\/devicedriverfinder.com\/images\/disk-management.jpg\" alt=\"Disk Management\" width=\"500\" height=\"320\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>In some cases, the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Master_boot_record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MBR<\/a> record can get corrupted, which means the partition information is gone. Products like the Acronis Disk Director Suite can help repair this.<\/li>\n<li>In the case of Vista or Windows 7 is asking for a driver for your external hard disk, you might need to remove the INFCACHE.1 file. Details can be found on the <a href=\"http:\/\/seagate.custkb.com\/seagate\/crm\/selfservice\/search.jsp?DocId=201235&amp;NewLang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Seagate site<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you cannot get the external hard disk to work on your computer using these tips, try the disk on a different computer since it could really be defective of course.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hopefully, you can solve any problems you have with your external hard drive using these tips. If you have any other experiences or suggestions, please leave a comment so we can update the list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/devicedriverfinder.com\/driverfinder.php\">Scan your computer for outdated drivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using external hard disks is a very convenient way to add storage capacity to your computer. The big advantage is that the external disk can easily be brought elsewhere and plugged to a different computer. Most external hard drives have a USB 2.0 connection, which can cause some problems with the Windows device detection. Find out how you can troubleshoot such problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[24,22,23],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-device-errors","tag-device-error","tag-external-device","tag-hard-disk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":659,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devicedriverfinder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}