- How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Windows 10
- How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Forgotten
- How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Expired
- How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized As A
Part 1: Reasons Why an External Hard Drive Could Be Not Detected. Here are some of the most common reasons that an external hard drive might not be recognized by Windows. You will need to resolve the specific issue before recovering data from an external hard drive that is not recognized. My external drive isn't recognized when i use the USB 3.0 port while my other thumb drive is. On using the other USB 2.0 port though the external drive shows. And yes, i tried your suggestion but couldn't see the drive in disk management. Could be a variety of issues, and limited info to work with here. I'll throw out some ideas, maybe one will help. Does it have lights indicating its status? Do any of these come on? This may be your next option if all else fails and windows doesn't recognize your external hard drive. There is a possibility it is partitioned in a file system windows is unable to recognize. If the hard-drive is in a format different from FAT32 or NTFS, your Windows PC would not be unable to recognize the hard-drive.
Dec 03, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
When an I/O error occurs, it indicates that the external hard drive has encountered a serious problem and has become inaccessible for file transfer and edit. All of the files and data stored on the external hard drive are at risk of being lost permanently. Keep reading, and learn how to fix hard drive I/O error and recover external hard drive files.
Part 1: What Is an I/O Error
My Seagate external hard drive was once not detected with my Windows even after doing basic troubleshooting it was not detected. Since the importance of data is crucial, I immediately searched for a best possible solution which I can perform at that point in time.
I/O stands for Input/Output. An I/O device error is an issue with the device that stops Windows from reading its contents or writing on it. It can appear on the internal hard drive (HDD or SSD), external hard disk, USB flash drive, SD card, CD/DVD, etc. If your external hard drive shows disk I/O error, you are unable to transfer computer data to and from the external hard drive.
Usually, when you get the 2 messages in Windows 10, an I/O device error exists. They are respectively 'The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error' or 'Only part of a read process memory or write process memory request was completed.' The I/O Error codes will be error 6, error 21, error 103, error 105, and error 131.
Reasons for Hard Drive I/O Error
Why does your external hard drive have the I/O device error message? It mainly lies in your hard disk.
- The hard drive is damaged physically or logically
- The file system of the hard drive is incompatible with the computer
- The drivers need to be updated
- The Windows transfer mode is incompatible with the hard drive
Part 2: How to Fix External Hard Drive I/O Error
How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Windows 10
Before you go to fix the hard drive input/output error, you should restart your computer How to download powerpoint. and access the external hard drive once again. Sometimes, rebooting the computer can help solve some hard disk errors. If the error still appears when you want to transfer and write disk files, don't worry. There are 3 solutions to external hard drive I/O device error.
Solution 1: Ensure the Correctness of the Cable Connections
Check the cable that is being used for connecting the external hard drive to the PC and ensure that it is working properly. The drive won't function as it should if the cable isn't properly attached. Try using a spare cable and test it by connecting it to a different USB port.
Note: Only a trained professional should attempt to replace the cables of an internal drive of a PC. The reason for this is that you can cause serious damage to the internal parts of the disk if you do this task incorrectly. Thus, cables located inside a portable computer or laptop shouldn't be changed by ordinary computer users.
If this solution works then your work is done. If it didn't fix the external hard drive I/O error then move on to solution 2.
Solution 2: Try Clean Booting Your PC
Check if a driver or program is clashing with the external hard drive by performing a clean boot of the PC. If your issue gets resolved after a clean boot, you might have an incompatible driver or program on your system.
For the safety of your computer, please follow the below steps carefully and do not disable advanced boot options.
Type 'MSConfig' in the search box and press Enter to open 'System Configuration'.
On the pop-up window, click the 'Services' tab, check 'Hide all Microsoft services' and tap 'Disable all'.
Go to the 'Startup' tab and click 'Open Task Manager' to open the Task Manager window.
Select all startup items and click 'Disable'. Click 'x' to close Task Manager.
Go back to 'System Configuration' > 'Startup', click 'OK' and reboot your Windows 10 computer.
After clean booting your PC, you can reinstall the operating system and applications on it. If this solution works then your work is done. If it didn't fix the external hard drive I/O error then move on to solution 3.
Solution 3: Alter the Drive's Transfer Mode in IDE Channel Properties
Windows won't be able to transfer data between the PC and the external drive if the drive's transfer mode is incorrect or has been changed. Correcting the transfer mode of the drive can fix this issue. You need to follow the below-mentioned step to perform this task.
Type 'Computer Management' in the search box beside the Start menu button.
Click 'Device Manager' on the left panel. Expand the option 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers' and you will see a list containing various IDE ATA/ATAPI channels for your PC.
Press the Properties option after right-clicking the channel that the external drive is connected to. The channel that is usually used for external hard drives is the Secondary IDE Channel.
Choose PIO Only option in the box labeled Transfer Mode for the device representing your external hard drive on the tab labeled Advanced Settings. Usually, this is Device 0. Close all windows and check the external hard drive with I/O error after clicking OK.
Warning: Primary ID Channel, Device 0 is used for system disk so don't change that. Your PC won't even work if you end up making any change to the settings of this transfer mode.
The drive might not be present there if changing the secondary IDE channel device 0's transfer mode doesn't fix your issue. If available, try to change back the transfer mode to DMA using the same process. After that, perform steps 1 to 6 for changing the IDE devices' transfer mode in the below-mentioned order until the problem is fixed:
- Primary IDE channel, device 1
- Secondary IDE channel, device 1
Do remember to reboot your PC after changing your settings to let the system identify the alterations that have been made. Examine the settings after the restart to ensure that they have taken effect. Your external hard drive will start working correctly if the settings are correct.
The display of the I/O error means that the external hard drive can lose all of the data that is present on it. How much money is minecraft on a laptop. If you have important files stored on your external hard drive, you need to recover data from the external hard drive before the data loss becomes permanent. The above-mentioned methods can fix external hard drive I/O error, but they can't retrieve the data from it.
Video Tutorial on How to Fix External Hard Drive I/O Device Error
Part 3: How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive
If you want to perform data recovery from an external hard drive, you have to use an external hard drive data recovery tool. The internet is fraught with various such tools that allow you to fix external hard drive I/O error and can retrieve data from external hard drives too. However, the only trustworthy software available out there for data recovery is Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Recoverit is a versatile hard disk data recovery program working under different data loss scenarios, such as deleting files by mistake, formatting an external disk, getting a damaged disk, and many more. It uses advanced scanning and searching engine to help you dig out all the invisible and inaccessible data. More than 1000 types and formats of data are supported.
3 Steps to Recover Data from External Hard Disk
The following is an instruction manual that describes the process of how to recover data from an external hard drive using Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Step 1. Select a hard disk
Make sure your external device with I/0 device error has connected to the computer. Select it and click 'Start' to go on.
Step 2. Scan the external disk
Start an all-around scan immediately. You can find your external hard drive files appear gradually. Wait for a few minutes and get the resulting menu.
Step 3. Preview and recover disk data
After the scan, you can preview the recoverable file from the hard drive, for example, pictures, movies, music, office files, and so on. Select the files you need and click 'Recover' to get all back.
I/O external hard drive errors can prove to be catastrophic if they are not dealt with quickly. You can use several methods to fix external hard drive I/O error. To recover data from an external hard drive, you will have to utilize a third-party tool like Recoverit data recovery software.
What's Wrong with Drive
- Recover Your Drive
- Fix Your Drive
- Format/Wipe Drive
- Know Your Drive
People also read:
- Part 1: Fix Portable Hard Drive Not Recognized Problem Manually
- Part 2: Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Problem with Data Recovery
Part 1: Fix Portable Hard Drive Not Recognized Problem Manually
To solve the external hard drive not recognized program on computer, you can use the inbuilt Disk Management tool to find it out and get it to be recognized.Attention: This method will erase the data on your external hard drive as you need to format it to get it to be recognized. Please be cautious!
Step 1 Plug your removable external hard drive into computer and open Disk Management tool by pressing Windows Key + R. Now type 'diskmgmt.msc' and then press Enter to continue.
If you can see your external hard drive on the pop-up windows, you can move to the last step to continue to job. However, if it isn't showed up at all, please continue to the step 2.
Step 2 You should check if there are issues for your USB port as well as your hard drive. If you can make sure both of them works well, Windows may be having a driver problem. Please check for the driver problem by following the tricks below:
1. Open Device Manager by pressing Windows Key + R, and enter 'devmgmt.msc'.
2. Find out your portable drive under 'Disk drives' menu. If you can see a yellow exclamation mark, your computer has a driver problem. Right-click the device and choose 'Properties', and you can see the error.
3. Search for the meaning of the error on the Internet, which will help to solve the problem.
4. You can also try to update or uninstall(Windows may reinstall the driver later) driver from Device Manager. Please refer to the screen shot below(Right-click the external hard drive and choose 'Properties').
Step 3 Now, we can use the Disk Management tool to fix hard drive cannot be recognized issue. Please right click inside the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume' and then follow the instructions to create a new partition. If your drive is formatted with the ext4 file system of Linux, NTFS file system, HFS Plus file system or FAT32 file system, you need to reformat your device. To do this, please right click on the partition and then select 'Format > File System' option.
- The hard drive is damaged physically or logically
- The file system of the hard drive is incompatible with the computer
- The drivers need to be updated
- The Windows transfer mode is incompatible with the hard drive
Part 2: How to Fix External Hard Drive I/O Error
How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Windows 10
Before you go to fix the hard drive input/output error, you should restart your computer How to download powerpoint. and access the external hard drive once again. Sometimes, rebooting the computer can help solve some hard disk errors. If the error still appears when you want to transfer and write disk files, don't worry. There are 3 solutions to external hard drive I/O device error.
Solution 1: Ensure the Correctness of the Cable Connections
Check the cable that is being used for connecting the external hard drive to the PC and ensure that it is working properly. The drive won't function as it should if the cable isn't properly attached. Try using a spare cable and test it by connecting it to a different USB port.
Note: Only a trained professional should attempt to replace the cables of an internal drive of a PC. The reason for this is that you can cause serious damage to the internal parts of the disk if you do this task incorrectly. Thus, cables located inside a portable computer or laptop shouldn't be changed by ordinary computer users.
If this solution works then your work is done. If it didn't fix the external hard drive I/O error then move on to solution 2.
Solution 2: Try Clean Booting Your PC
Check if a driver or program is clashing with the external hard drive by performing a clean boot of the PC. If your issue gets resolved after a clean boot, you might have an incompatible driver or program on your system.
For the safety of your computer, please follow the below steps carefully and do not disable advanced boot options.
Type 'MSConfig' in the search box and press Enter to open 'System Configuration'.
On the pop-up window, click the 'Services' tab, check 'Hide all Microsoft services' and tap 'Disable all'.
Go to the 'Startup' tab and click 'Open Task Manager' to open the Task Manager window.
Select all startup items and click 'Disable'. Click 'x' to close Task Manager.
Go back to 'System Configuration' > 'Startup', click 'OK' and reboot your Windows 10 computer.
After clean booting your PC, you can reinstall the operating system and applications on it. If this solution works then your work is done. If it didn't fix the external hard drive I/O error then move on to solution 3.
Solution 3: Alter the Drive's Transfer Mode in IDE Channel Properties
Windows won't be able to transfer data between the PC and the external drive if the drive's transfer mode is incorrect or has been changed. Correcting the transfer mode of the drive can fix this issue. You need to follow the below-mentioned step to perform this task.
Type 'Computer Management' in the search box beside the Start menu button.
Click 'Device Manager' on the left panel. Expand the option 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers' and you will see a list containing various IDE ATA/ATAPI channels for your PC.
Press the Properties option after right-clicking the channel that the external drive is connected to. The channel that is usually used for external hard drives is the Secondary IDE Channel.
Choose PIO Only option in the box labeled Transfer Mode for the device representing your external hard drive on the tab labeled Advanced Settings. Usually, this is Device 0. Close all windows and check the external hard drive with I/O error after clicking OK.
Warning: Primary ID Channel, Device 0 is used for system disk so don't change that. Your PC won't even work if you end up making any change to the settings of this transfer mode.
The drive might not be present there if changing the secondary IDE channel device 0's transfer mode doesn't fix your issue. If available, try to change back the transfer mode to DMA using the same process. After that, perform steps 1 to 6 for changing the IDE devices' transfer mode in the below-mentioned order until the problem is fixed:
- Primary IDE channel, device 1
- Secondary IDE channel, device 1
Do remember to reboot your PC after changing your settings to let the system identify the alterations that have been made. Examine the settings after the restart to ensure that they have taken effect. Your external hard drive will start working correctly if the settings are correct.
The display of the I/O error means that the external hard drive can lose all of the data that is present on it. How much money is minecraft on a laptop. If you have important files stored on your external hard drive, you need to recover data from the external hard drive before the data loss becomes permanent. The above-mentioned methods can fix external hard drive I/O error, but they can't retrieve the data from it.
Video Tutorial on How to Fix External Hard Drive I/O Device Error
Part 3: How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive
If you want to perform data recovery from an external hard drive, you have to use an external hard drive data recovery tool. The internet is fraught with various such tools that allow you to fix external hard drive I/O error and can retrieve data from external hard drives too. However, the only trustworthy software available out there for data recovery is Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Recoverit is a versatile hard disk data recovery program working under different data loss scenarios, such as deleting files by mistake, formatting an external disk, getting a damaged disk, and many more. It uses advanced scanning and searching engine to help you dig out all the invisible and inaccessible data. More than 1000 types and formats of data are supported.
3 Steps to Recover Data from External Hard Disk
The following is an instruction manual that describes the process of how to recover data from an external hard drive using Recoverit Data Recovery software.
Step 1. Select a hard disk
Make sure your external device with I/0 device error has connected to the computer. Select it and click 'Start' to go on.
Step 2. Scan the external disk
Start an all-around scan immediately. You can find your external hard drive files appear gradually. Wait for a few minutes and get the resulting menu.
Step 3. Preview and recover disk data
After the scan, you can preview the recoverable file from the hard drive, for example, pictures, movies, music, office files, and so on. Select the files you need and click 'Recover' to get all back.
I/O external hard drive errors can prove to be catastrophic if they are not dealt with quickly. You can use several methods to fix external hard drive I/O error. To recover data from an external hard drive, you will have to utilize a third-party tool like Recoverit data recovery software.
What's Wrong with Drive
- Recover Your Drive
- Fix Your Drive
- Format/Wipe Drive
- Know Your Drive
People also read:
- Part 1: Fix Portable Hard Drive Not Recognized Problem Manually
- Part 2: Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Problem with Data Recovery
Part 1: Fix Portable Hard Drive Not Recognized Problem Manually
To solve the external hard drive not recognized program on computer, you can use the inbuilt Disk Management tool to find it out and get it to be recognized.Attention: This method will erase the data on your external hard drive as you need to format it to get it to be recognized. Please be cautious!
Step 1 Plug your removable external hard drive into computer and open Disk Management tool by pressing Windows Key + R. Now type 'diskmgmt.msc' and then press Enter to continue.
If you can see your external hard drive on the pop-up windows, you can move to the last step to continue to job. However, if it isn't showed up at all, please continue to the step 2.
Step 2 You should check if there are issues for your USB port as well as your hard drive. If you can make sure both of them works well, Windows may be having a driver problem. Please check for the driver problem by following the tricks below:
1. Open Device Manager by pressing Windows Key + R, and enter 'devmgmt.msc'.
2. Find out your portable drive under 'Disk drives' menu. If you can see a yellow exclamation mark, your computer has a driver problem. Right-click the device and choose 'Properties', and you can see the error.
3. Search for the meaning of the error on the Internet, which will help to solve the problem.
4. You can also try to update or uninstall(Windows may reinstall the driver later) driver from Device Manager. Please refer to the screen shot below(Right-click the external hard drive and choose 'Properties').
Step 3 Now, we can use the Disk Management tool to fix hard drive cannot be recognized issue. Please right click inside the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume' and then follow the instructions to create a new partition. If your drive is formatted with the ext4 file system of Linux, NTFS file system, HFS Plus file system or FAT32 file system, you need to reformat your device. To do this, please right click on the partition and then select 'Format > File System' option.
How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Forgotten
Part 2: Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Problem with Data Recovery
Data Recovery will help to look for all the data from your removable external hard drive, even it is not recognized on your computer. In addition, not like the method above, it will not erase any data from your hard disk. Now, let check it out below.Step 1 Firstly, please download and install Data Recovery on your computer. Then launch it.
Step 2 Choose the file type you wish to recover from the hard drive or you can select all of them.
Step 3 Select your hard disk under 'External removable device' if you can see it displayed. If you can't, please try 'I can't find my partitions'.
How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized Expired
Then the program would start to scan your hard disk. And you are recommended to use the deep scan mode to have a thoroughly scanning.How Can I Fix My External Hard Drive Not Recognized As A
Step 4 After the scanning, you are able to preview and recover all of the files from the portable hard drive which is not recognized on your computer. Now, the external hard drive now showing up issue has been solved.
If you have any question about this article, please leave us a message on the below comment box!
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