Seagate external hard drive not showing up in my computer. It is detected.

[sherdil]

My 320 GB Seagate external hard drive is detected but not showing up in my computer. What should I do?

In cmd> diskpart> list volume it does not show up. (screenshot attached)

In Device Manager it gets detected. (screenshot attached)

In disk management it shows up as 'unallocated'. If I initialize it, will I lose all data on the drive? It had 4 partitions. (screenshot attached)

In My Computer also it does not show up. (screenshot attached)


Even BIOS recognizes it.

What to do? I don't want to lose any data on the drive. If I initialize it in device manager will I lose data?

I was installing window XP on my computer, usually I remove the external drive but this time I did not. The external drive was shown as 4 drives in partition manager during installation. But the installation failed. The next time I was installing windows again, the external drive was shown as 1 single unknown or unrecognized drive. I'm not sure if it was unknown or unrecognized. I'm sure I didn't format it. So what I need to do now? I don't want to lose any data.

 

[SNGX1275]

Yes, if you initialize it you will 'lose' everything. You will want to try something like Active@Partition Recovery or maybe Easeus Partition Recovery.

 

[chip igmo]

Run Ubuntu, copy all data from external hdd to hdd to ntfs partition.
run windows xp, confirm data copied (backup to cd/dvd/usb flash drive/other external hdd)
initialize Seagate 320gb external hdd under windows xp, copy data back to external hdd.

 

[Techpumpkin_WD]

Hi there,
Windows will see the space as unallocated if there is no partition or it cannot read it. Now if the data is really important for you, the safest way to get it back is to contact a data recovery company. Using data recovery software if you're not absolutely sure what you are doing might cause more damage to the data.
If you want to take the risk of restoring it yourself you, might try using some partition recovery software as suggested above.
Hope that helps.