[mahdi_sadughi]

Hi there,
I have an external WD hard disk drive that recently stopped working in my pc (windows 10). It shows the drive name but doesn’t display the capacity indicator and I can’t enter the drive.
When I try to check disk, it says “The disk check could not be performed because windows can't access the disk”
This HDD used to work in my machine and it is still properly working in another pc and in my smart TV.
I have several external HDDs that works in my system right now without any problem
Trying to solve the issue, I changed the cable and USB port but it didn’t help. I think it shouldn’t be related to USB port and cable as other external HDDs with the same brand and model works with them in my system.

I tried to solve the issue with WD Drive Utilities and by AOMEI Partition Assistant 9.1 but they didn’t help. I use “Windows security” as my antivirus and firewall. Turning off the virus protection and firewall and other settings in the app didn’t help. I also restored “Windows security” to “defaults” to make sure it doesn’t stop my disk.
Maybe I need to define a permission in windows to solve it.

I think the best scenario is to copy the data of the mentioned disk on another space and format the disk, but I am looking for an easier way as I really do not have much space on other disks.
The Drive Name: WD-White ( G: )
Do you have any idea to solve this issue?

 

[johnwill]

What's the display look like on the other computer?

Have you connected it to the computer that it works on and opened a command prompt and done a CHKDSK x: /F, where x: is the drive letter? That may sort it out.

 

[spunk.funk]

Remove all external USB Mass Storage devices from your computer temporaritly (ie) USB HDD's, Flash Drives, Phones, Camera's, Card Readers etc.
Does the WD drive have it's own power adapter? If so, plug it directly into the wall socket and not thru a surge protector or extension cord.
Plug the USB cable from the drive into Back USB port of the computer and not the front or thru a USB Hub, this diminishes the power. You should get a new hardware found. If no, press the Windows key +X and choose Device Manager. If there are any devices with yellow flags, right click them and Uninstall them. Unplug the USB cable from the computer end and restart the computer. When the computer comes up, plug the USB cable into Back USB port it should be recognized.
If not, press the Windows key +X and choose Disk Management. Here in the lower pane, do you see your drive? Does it say the file system is Unallocated Space? or the Disk # says Not Initialized? If so, then attach the drive to whatever computer sees it and copy the data off and do a Full Format as opposed to Quick. This will check every sector of the drive. If any are bad it will mark them as so. You can also download DiskGenius in my signature and you can select the drive and go up to the toolbar to View or Repair Bad Sectors/Verify Now, this does the same thing, but it gives you a visual of all the sectors, if any are Bad, the drive needs to be replaced.

 

[mahdi_sadughi]

What's the display look like on the other computer?

Have you connected it to the computer that it works on and opened a command prompt and done a CHKDSK x: /F, where x: is the drive letter? That may sort it out.

Thank You John;

I have checked the drive with CHKDSK x: /F and it says it is fine.
The HDD looks normal on the other computer.

 

[mahdi_sadughi]

Remove all external USB Mass Storage devices from your computer temporaritly (ie) USB HDD's, Flash Drives, Phones, Camera's, Card Readers etc.
Does the WD drive have it's own power adapter? If so, plug it directly into the wall socket and not thru a surge protector or extension cord.
Plug the USB cable from the drive into Back USB port of the computer and not the front or thru a USB Hub, this diminishes the power. You should get a new hardware found. If no, press the Windows key +X and choose Device Manager. If there are any devices with yellow flags, right click them and Uninstall them. Unplug the USB cable from the computer end and restart the computer. When the computer comes up, plug the USB cable into Back USB port it should be recognized.
If not, press the Windows key +X and choose Disk Management. Here in the lower pane, do you see your drive? Does it say the file system is Unallocated Space? or the Disk # says Not Initialized? If so, then attach the drive to whatever computer sees it and copy the data off and do a Full Format as opposed to Quick. This will check every sector of the drive. If any are bad it will mark them as so. You can also download DiskGenius in my signature and you can select the drive and go up to the toolbar to View or Repair Bad Sectors/Verify Now, this does the same thing, but it gives you a visual of all the sectors, if any are Bad, the drive needs to be replaced.

Thanks for your instructions.
I checked the device out without any other external USB device, but it didn't solve the issue.
My disk is a 2TB WD My password 2.5-inch Hard Drive with no power adapter, so it uses the USB port for power.
Everything looks normal but it says it has “Unknown Content”

The disk is displaying on Device Manager/Disk Drives

I went thru "View or Repair Bad Sectors/Verify Now" on "Disk Genius" and checked the disk. It says
“Disk verify completed. No bad tracks found.” There were 239627 Excellent and 3571 Good sectors on the Disk. The majority of good ones were located at the end of the disk.

I can easily see my data on “Disk Genius” and can copy them to a specific location.
Do you have any other idea to solve that?
I consider the disk format as the last resort.

 

[johnwill]

Are you sure the USB port is supplying enough power? That seems to be the wild card here. The fact that the disk works normally on another computer leads me to believe that looking for bad sectors is not going to be a fruitful exercise.

You could try connecting it to the computer using a powered USB hub that has the capability to provide more power.

 

[mahdi_sadughi]

Are you sure the USB port is supplying enough power? That seems to be the wild card here. The fact that the disk works normally on another computer leads me to believe that looking for bad sectors is not going to be a fruitful exercise.

You could try connecting it to the computer using a powered USB hub that has the capability to provide more power.

I think the USB ports don't work perfectly.
I have one USB type2 port and two USB type 3 on my laptop computer. I always use one of them for my wireless mouse dongle and if I use two others with external HDDs, sometimes the mouse stops working.
Even without any external HDDs, I sometimes need to change the mouse USB port because my mouse stops working.
I have 4 WD my password HDDs (2 TB) and I use them for several years but I found issues with just one of them.
I can't figure out which port might cause the issue; maybe it is a combination of them that cause the issue.
Anyway, it seems to be a good idea.
Thank You.

 

[johnwill]

If the USB ports is flaky, that may be the whole problem.

 

[SoCalBryan]

So what are the connector end types on the usb cable?

I have usb 3.0 drive caddy that utilizes the newer type b cable,blue color that will not work on USB2.0 ports. I have to use the older type b cable second pic with white insides.

The point I'm trying to make is to test to see if it's a USB version issue.

In my case the USB 3.0 cable, that came with the drive caddy, used to work in a USB 2.0 slot but stopped. Even on a USB 3.0 port I was occasionally getting a message that the drive caddy would be faster in a USB 3.0 port when it was already in a USB 3.0 port. So in my case it was a driver issue.

I didn't think that there was a difference in the cables but it makes since that a USB 2.0 cable might not be able to handle the higher transfer speeds of a USB 3 cable. Worth a try to test and see.

In my case putting the older USB 2 type b cable in the USB 3 port of the caddy allows it to work in USB 2.0 ports on other computers or the USB 2 ports on the same computer.Weird? Yeah!

 

[johnwill]

So what are the connector end types on the usb cable?

I have usb 3.0 drive caddy that utilizes the newer type b cable,blue color that will not work on USB2.0 ports. I have to use the older type b cable second pic with white insides.

FWIW, the blue cable should be fully downward compatible with USB 2.0 ports, and all of them that I have here work fine in USB 2.0 ports. That should not be an issue. I don't think this is as simple as using the USB 3.0 cable.

If the USB 3.0 cable was truly incompatible with USB 2.0 ports, the drives I have using this style cable would have no way of connecting to USB 2.0 equipped computers. Clearly, this is not the case, they work fine.

 

[SoCalBryan]

Yeah the Blue 3.0 cable should be downward compatible. But it's not in my case. The blue cable came with the Saberent caddy.

I had a USB hdd caddy that used the type of cable like the the pic you posted. I finally had to pull the drive out of the case because that style port caused the connector inside the case to fail with broken solder joints.

Bought another case that used a Type A to Type A calble solved the problem for me.

 

[johnwill]

Odd, I've never had an issue with the half dozen USB 3.0 drives I have moving them around between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. I guess there's always an exception to every rule.

 

[mahdi_sadughi]

Problem Solved!
I have connected a powered USB hub to my PC and checked the HDD with the PC I have issued with. It didn't help.
The disk reported issue was “Unknown Content”. So as the last resort, I copied the data somewhere else and went through a full Disk format. Formatting the disk solved the issue. Now I am using the Drive for several weeks and have no issues with that.

Thanks for all your cooperation and advice