External hard drive not recognised

**René Artois** · April 27, 2012, 01:34 PM

Western Digital Elements 1tb and Windows Vista 64

Basically it's plugged in but the hard drive light is solid. I can hear the disc spinning around inside. It doesn't show up in "my computer".

I ran chkdsk f: /f via command prompt but "cannot open volume for direct access". This was actually the solution when it happened before.

It seemed to start when the laptop was put into sleep then started up again a few hours later, the drive being turned on a connected all the while.

Oh yeah and when windows says "device not recognised" it's only advice is to "replace the device".

Any suggestions?

**MathiasOfAthens** · April 27, 2012, 01:58 PM

Have you checked Disk Management?

Right click My Computer and click Manage.

**René Artois** · April 27, 2012, 02:47 PM

It's ok now, the law of sod came into play. I asked for help after a few days of it not working and as soon as I asked for help it started working again.

**PoleCat** · April 27, 2012, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by GHANDI, MATE

...Oh yeah and when windows says "device not recognised" it's only advice is to "replace the device"....

In the future if you're asked to "replace the drive" on an external just unplug it when the system is cold, reboot and plug the drive back in when fully booted. Let PnP do it's job. Good luck!