Samsung m3 500gb external drive not showing in my computer

[john-the-plotter]

My pc is running xp with sp3 and all the latest updates

 

I have a samsung m3 500gb external usb drive.

When I first installed it some months back if was working fine. Then I had some reason to disconnect it.

I since have had to reinstall windows and the drive has not been connected for a couple of months.

Now I have reconnected the drive, windows plug and play recognises it and installs it. when I go into device manager it shows up there and doesn't display a problem.

But it doesn't show up in my computer and when I try and use the samsung software; that loads but doesn't show a drive either.

The blue light on the drive is lit and the usb plug is firmly in.

I have tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. but it is still the same. I have tried uninstalling the whole drive and reinstalling again it is still the same.

I have download the seagate drive testing tool and all that does is says searching for scsi drives and hangs.

It doesn't offer me any options to choose usb drives.

I have tried the window troubleshooting but again it solved nothing. Now I am lost as to what to try next.

 

Any advice is most welcomed.

John

[KenB]

Hi John

 

Take a look in Disk Management and see if the drive is listed there

 

This may help -

 

 

1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
   
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
   
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view.
   
4. Try allocating a different drive letter to the drive if it is there.
   

[john-the-plotter]

I have tried that,and all it shows is disc 0 and cd 0 and cd 1 disc 0 is my main internal hard drive.

[KenB]

Hi John

Is the device recognised correctly if you plug it into another computer system ?

[john-the-plotter]

I have had another look at the problem now that Christmas is out of the way.

 

The pc sees the drive. It shows up in device manager without a fault,but it doesn't show up in my computer.

The Samsung tools box comes up, but it too doesn't seem to see the drive.

When I open up the samsung drive manager program it gives me the option to update which I tried. That says the lastest version is installed.

Another option is disk management, Each time I open that, it comes up with an error message and says the program needs to close.

When I go into diagnostics it says" this external hard disk does not support"

Then it opens up the diagnostics box, but does not show any drive to check. Most of the option buttons are greyed out.

 

I am puzzled.

[KenB]

Hi John

 

you stated in post 1

when I go into device manager it shows up there and doesn't display a problem.

 

Then in post #3 you state ..

all it shows is disc 0 and cd 0 and cd 1 disc 0

This doesn't look right.

 

in your last post you state again ..

It shows up in device manager without a fault,

 

Could you possibly post a screenshot of what is showing in Device Manager ?

 

Also ..

Have you tried this in another system system?

Results ?

[john-the-plotter]

I have checked device manager again.

Under disk drives, the Samsung M3 protable drive is shown location 0 and enabled and working correctly

It also shows under USB mass storage device with the same details.

When I click on the populate button it shows nothing and will not populate the drive.

That would seem to me as thought the drive may need reformating, but I cannot see an option for this.

When I go into the Samsung drive manager program, that does not respond to any of the options I choose.

 

Please ignore my earlier statements in post three as they must have been wrong.

Is the drive some how corrupted even though windows says it is working correctly, or is the the drive manager program the problem ?

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Edited January 18, 2014 by john-the-plotter

[KenB]

I asked this earlier - have you been able to check?

Is the device recognised correctly if you plug it into another computer system ?

 

Connect the drive up to a USB port. ( give it time to register )

Go to Disk Management

click here

The drive should show up here with a drive letter.

 

Disk 0 is your main hard drive with Windows on it.

 

If all looks OK try allocating a different drive letter.

click here

[john-the-plotter]

Hi Ken

I have tried this drive on a pc down at our club.

It shows up in device manager as samsung external drive but it doesn't allocate any drive letter to it.

It also says it is working correctly.

When I go into the drives properties it does not show any capacity or space used on the drive, and when I press the Populate button, it says unable to populate this drive.

I am going to try uninstalling the drive and software completely from my pc and then reinstalling it to see what happends, I will report back later

[john-the-plotter]

No luck Ken,

It still keeps allocating the drive to location 0, which as you say is the internal hard drive.

Then when I reboot it takes ages for the boot up time whilst it searches the drive.

When I remove the drive the boot up time goes back to normal.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi John, when the Samsung drive is plugged in and supposedly running, can you feel any slight vibration on it? the best drives in the world will still give a slight amount that you can feel when holding it. (Except of course for solid state or SSD drives)

 

If there is no vibration at all, that will be the answer as the disks will not be spinning. That can happen when a drive is stored unused, the disk bearings can seize up.

If no vibration at all, try rapping it with your knuckles, not too hard, but enough to hopefully get the moving parts actually moving.

 

Nev.

[john-the-plotter]

Hi Nev. I have tried that and no vibrations, I tried rapping it a couple of times and still no luck.

[KenB]

Looks like Nev has put his finger on it.

 

The drive isn't spinning - so no data is being read.

 

If this fails - this may sound a bit strange ...... wrap the drive tightly in cling-film and put it in a sealed plastic bag to keep the air out.

Put it in a freezer overnight.

Take it out of the wrappings and try it again.

 

Freezing can sometimes get things moving again.

 

If this fails .....

 

To take Nev's suggestion a bit further .... try slapping the drive down flat on a solid surface.

[john-the-plotter]

Thanks Ken I will try that

[john-the-plotter]

I cant feel anything, but when I put my ear close on it, I can hear a rumbling noise.

 

But still the drive doesn't show any detail when I try and populate it.

And although it shows in device manager, it still doesn't show in my computer

[KenB]

Hi again,

 

It still keeps allocating the drive to location 0

Can you take a screen shot of what Disk Manager looks like please ?

 

Open Disk Manager > press PrtSc key

Open Paint > Paste

Save As ...........save it as a .jpg to your desktop.

 

On here .......... hit the Reply button > Go Advanced ( on the right side bottom of text box )

Manage Attachments ( underneath text box )

Add Files > Select Files ..............locate the .jpg that you just saved.

Click on Upload Files

After it has uploaded > Insert Line 1 > Done

[john-the-plotter]

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[john-the-plotter]

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[john-the-plotter]

There is something I have just noticed as well as the above problem.

I have a Sony dvd drive that has not worked for some time, even though windows says it is.

When I look in device manager it says that is allocated to loction 0 as well.

My cd drive is alloceted to location 1 and that works fine.

[KenB]

Hi John

 

The image you have given is Device Manager - I asked for a Disk Manager image.

Can you take a screen shot of what Disk Manager looks like please ?

 

See my post number 8 :)

 

When I look in device manager it says that is allocated to loction 0 as well.

This is totally different from Disk Management

 

Device Manager - "location 0" refers to the BUS ( a circuit path ) that the device is connected to.

Most hardware is on 0 or 1

 

In Disk Management each drive is identified separately and defined as disk 0 / 1 / 2 etc

If disk 0 has partitions on it then they are given letters - C: / D: etc.

The same applies for Disk 1 / 2 etc

 

If for some reason the partition on one disk has the same letter as another then it will not show in "Computer" and will need to be allocated a new drive letter.

 

This is why I asked for the screenshot of Disk Management.

 

Your image showing "Volumes" with no data is normal - mine is the same.

[john-the-plotter]

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[KenB]

Hi

 

Thanks for the last image :)

It shows your drive as Disk 1 ( F: ) with "no media" ........... in other words it can't read what is on the drive and assumes there is nothing.

 

Try running CheckDisk on the drive.

 

Start > ...type in .....cmd ...ENTER [ this is for XP and assumes that you have an Admin account - Vista Win7 and Win 8 are different ]

at the command prompt type in ......... chkdsk F:/f ......ENTER

[ note there is a space after chkdsk ]

This assumes that your drive is still allocated F: as a drive letter.

 

Run CheckDisk - it may take some time - depends on the size of the drive.

You can run this 2 or 3 times as often it picks things up on the second pass.

 

CheckDisk scans the drive for errors and tries to repair anything it finds relating to bad sectors / lost clusters / directory errors etc.

 

Try accessing the drive now,

[john-the-plotter]

Hi Ken

Tried that. All I get is a flashing cursur in top left of the screen that is headed C:\windows\system 32chkdsk.exe, and nothing else; the screen then goes off after about 1/2 minute.

I have tried it three times as you suggested and same each time.

[john-the-plotter]

And just to check that I was doing it correctly I changed the drive letter to C and that scans as it should do.

[KenB]

Hi again

 

Just as a check ....

At the command prompt type .............. diskpart ..........ENTER

 

Then type in .......list volume ......ENTER

 

This will show you a list of drives attached to the system.

I am assuming that F: will not be there.

 

This will show all partitions on the drives and can be a bit confusing as it will show hidden partitions too.

Take a look at the volume size.

If there is something there that corresponds to your problem drive - make a note of the drive letter.

 

If unsure - post a screen shot.

 

==========

 

I am not holding out much hope for the above so please download Seatools from here - click here

You want the Windows option.

Save it to your desktop so that you can locate it easily.