My 4TB hard drive recently won't boot properly. It powers up, the light comes on, I can hear the disk as usual, no unusual sounds, but then the light starts flashing as it always does but doesn't stop and shows up on windows explorer as an unknown drive without telling how much space is on it. It freezes up windows explorer, I can't restart the computer unless I unplug the drive, disk repair software stays stuck searching for new drives unless I unplug it and I can't access disk management unless I unplug it. I unplugged the device without safely ejecting which has caused this, so is there any fix I could do? there are some irreplaceable files on this drive which I was in the process of backing up (what timing, eh?) - I've tried disk check in command prompt, it was sat for 3 days doing it, got to stage 5, got through almost all of the clusters and then just stopped disk checking. I did this twice with the same result again. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
External Hard Drive Stuck on Booting
- Thread starter lukeskb
- Start date
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Sounds like the drive has failed.
The only troubleshooting you can fry really is remove the drive from the external caddy and try chkdsk r from it as an internal drive.
Stephen M
Author Level
This is a real long shot and probably not worth the hassle but this worked for me once.
If you have a machine running Ubuntu, it is a free Linux distro, within their disk manager there is an option to "repair disc" or something like that. Sorry it is a while back and cannot remember exactly.
I tried that with one USB drive that was showing as corrupted and it did work.
Sorry cannot be more help, am on phone at moment, if I get the chance will have a search later for more information.
If you have a machine running Ubuntu, it is a free Linux distro, within their disk manager there is an option to "repair disc" or something like that. Sorry it is a while back and cannot remember exactly.
I tried that with one USB drive that was showing as corrupted and it did work.
Sorry cannot be more help, am on phone at moment, if I get the chance will have a search later for more information.
how will that help? would it not still be connected via usb?
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
No, you remove the drive from the caddy, and attach it as you would any normal internal drive.
It's to eliminate the caddy controller perhaps having failed. If that's the case the drive should work perfectly fine.
the usb port is soldered straight to the drive - its a 4TB WD My Passport btw
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
No, that's just a caddy.
You have to break the caddy and remove it and inside is a normal drive.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
It's most unlikely to be even though it looks that way. You'll likely find the case comes apart, if there are no obvious screws then the bottom will lever off the sides. You'll find it's a standard SATA drive with a bit of electronic gubbins attached to handle the USB port.
TBH I would not plug it in internally - just in case the drive has failed in such a way that it permanently fouls up the interface. If it were mine I'd buy a cheap caddy and plug the drive into that - just in case.
This doesn't sound like a simple or common problem to me. Even if the partition table had been screwed (which would make the drive appear unusable) I wouldn't expect the problems the OP reported in the first post. This sounds electronic to me - which is why I'd be cautious about plugging it in internally.
what caddies would you recommend? I'm looking around and not sure what to look for, could you link me to one you'd recommend?
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Any SATA caddy will do. Search on Amazon, a really cheap one will do for what you need.
Stephen M
Author Level
Have a look on Amazon, there are different types, you need to choose the best for you.
I have one which is designed to slot various size drives in but that is useful to me as I have a lot of old drives from previous machines.
A good one for you, as Ubuysa suggested, is a cheap caddy, it will enclose the drive, basically making it a home made external USB drive.
I have one which is designed to slot various size drives in but that is useful to me as I have a lot of old drives from previous machines.
A good one for you, as Ubuysa suggested, is a cheap caddy, it will enclose the drive, basically making it a home made external USB drive.
