External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

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john the baptist
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External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby john the baptist » Fri Jul 27, 2018 10:23 pm

Hi everyone Im having a nightmare as Im digging myself into a bigger and bigger hole.

It should be easy and I did not think I would have many issues but things are not going to plan.

My problem is that the HD of my laptop is on the way out and Im getting plenty of warning messages saying so and to back up data, so I started to look into back up software and the price of a new 2.5inch HD for the lap top.

The first issue was that I downloaded a few programs and essentially I made a full copy of the 320gb of the laptop (or at least I think i did), however the what was stored on my WD external drive of 500gb was strange AND what got me really confused was that the 500gb now turned into max 320gb with a separate lettered drive called recovery which was 100mb (no GB).

So thinking i got it wrong i tried to format my external HDD and start again, however as I discovered I had created load of partitions, which after even more you tube and google research I have deleted some but not all.

HOWEVER the worse thing I have done was select the drive letter so now when I plug it into the laptop via usb its NOT even recognized. (ie) there is no drive to go into.

Can any please point me in the right direction on how to get mt 500gb ex HDD formatted and normal again and then ill try to continue with a back up or just copy my important files and family photos.

Personally I thought back up would be easy and that after buying a new 2.5 inch HD id be able to copy it all back but apparently not and Im totally confused what i need to do to get windows 10 back. The Laptop originally came with windows 7 which I upgraded for free when MS was allowing it but I dont think you can just load it all back on. Will i need to buy a copy of Windows 10. at this rate it will be cheaper to buy a new machine :(

Any advice will be much appreciated as I want to sort out my EX HDD before the internal one finally fails. Im assuming all HD eventually break and that I do not have a strange virus that is killing my machine.

Thanks in advance as always for any help.

KR

JB

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Enrique
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Enrique » Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:13 pm

Hi JdeB.

Get yourself of to bed........I'll give you some options in the morning.................. :idea:
All my best learning experiences start with a problem I need to solve.

markwilding
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby markwilding » Sat Jul 28, 2018 7:58 am

While I understand why you want to back up to a hard drive, I my opinion these days the cloud is the easiest way to back up data you have on your computer.

My administration is in a file that automatically goes to the cloud so is accessible on any phone, tablet or laptop I want to access it on. I use Google drive if I want to share documents that need information inputting by other people.

Photos and videos go to Google photos.
I have bought 2 HDDs in the past and at some point had problems with both.

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Enrique
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Enrique » Sat Jul 28, 2018 8:19 am

Good Morning JdeB,
There are two ways we can move this forward.............
Download Teamviewer and I can come on your system, Format your External drive, download Macrium Reflect Backup and do and IMAGE backup of your current Laptop HDD. You will need a 9GB Memory stick to build a Bootable recovery version of Reflect for the Restore to your new replacement HDD.

Or the slow way with me typing up a procedure and you faffing around trying to follow it............. :(

Worst case........
With Windows 10 you can do a new install as all the license details are held on Bill's Servers at Microsoft(MS).
For this you will need a 9GB Memory stick for the .ISO file Downloaded from MS.

To FORMAT a HDD use ............"Create and Format hard disk partitions"

Please let me know how you want to proceed............. :idea:
All my best learning experiences start with a problem I need to solve.

john the baptist
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby john the baptist » Sat Jul 28, 2018 11:56 am

Thanks Enrique

What software program do I need to format the HDD??? Ive erased the letters associated to the drive so it does not show up in the normal way.

Gracias

John

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Enrique
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Enrique » Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:06 pm

HI,
Type in the Search programs and files ...........Create and format hard disk partitions

Like what I posted earlier today............. :D

With pictures................Part 2 is the bit you're interested in

https://www.isumsoft.com/windows-10/cre ... ition.html
All my best learning experiences start with a problem I need to solve.

john the baptist
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby john the baptist » Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:51 pm

thanks Enrique, Ive still have 4 partitions i cant delete. But I have re-lettered the 2 section of the Ex HDD to D: and F:.

I still have no idea how to delete the partitions and these partitions do not show as NTFS

any ideas???

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Enrique
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Enrique » Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:58 pm

In Disk Management.
If you right click on the Partition do you get option to Delete ?

If you have OEM and Recovery Partitions on that external HDD then you will need to use Diskpart to remove them, You're starting to move into"I'm getting my hands really dirty now" ................... :)

The Teamviewer option is still on the table.................. :idea:
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john the baptist
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby john the baptist » Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:10 pm

as it takes up only a few GB would i be better off just leaving it??

its very annoying why I can not format the whole lot

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Enrique
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Enrique » Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:14 pm

Look at section 03.............

https://www.lifewire.com/delete-windows ... on-4128723

Some Partitions are protected so you can't delete them with Disk Management but have to use Diskpart.
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El Cid
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby El Cid » Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:08 pm

This is becoming another one on one very specific problem that would be better handled by the PM system.

So, please take this to PM and Remote Access

This is a forum about living in Andalucia, not a technical support site for very specific problems.

Sid

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gerryh
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby gerryh » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:10 pm

But the problem, and particularity the solution, might be of interest to others f us on this forum.
Cheers
Gerry
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby El Cid » Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:32 pm

I agree with that for general problems but this is very specific and I do not see that is of interest to most members.

If enough people agree with you, that it of definite interest to them, I will change my position.

There are hundreds of support forums available on the Internet to deal with this sort of problem.

Sid

john the baptist
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby john the baptist » Sun Jul 29, 2018 12:27 am

ok

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knowal
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby knowal » Sun Jul 29, 2018 9:48 am

It's of interest to me.

El Cid
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby El Cid » Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:02 am

OK - carry on with it.

Sid

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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Lyric » Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:03 am

I don't see a problem, it's in the right forum, a resident 'spurt lurks, and, while it may not be relevant now, sometime in the future the cell will be triggered and a look back will see the problem for reference.

TorreDelAguila
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby TorreDelAguila » Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:27 am

Agree. We're lucky to have Enrique amongst us, and the topic is tucked into the correct pigeon-hole.
Could be useful advice for later.
Thanks, Sid, for being flexible on this.
Chris

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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby Lyric » Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:55 am

+1

markwilding
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Re: External WD Hard Drive is not recognised. Please Help!!!

Postby markwilding » Sun Jul 29, 2018 12:23 pm

I prefer advice in the open forum. Sometimes i google a problem and the answer is in A.com.
A side benefit is that it drives people to the forum and some might become members.


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