Trouble initializing a USB drive

Anonymous
2018-07-10T15:32:31+00:00

I am having trouble initializing an HDD that I have connected to my PC via USB.  I'm stuck, and I need some ideas.  Below is detail.

I am running Windows 10.  The outboard HDD disk in question was previously the internal C: drive on this PC.  I replaced it with a larger drive about four months ago purely so I would have more storage capacity; it was running fine at the time I replaced it, and it has been stored carefully since.  I am using a USB 2.0 to IDE SATA adapter cable to connect the disk to my PC via one of the PC's USB ports.  I've used this same cable to connect other HDDs to this same PC in the same manner successfully in the past.

When I navigate to ThisPC, the drive does not appear.  I right-click on START, choose Disk Management, and the following is displayed:

I click OK, and the following is displayed:

I run DiskPart, and I get this:

The Event Viewer shows me this:

... and this:

... and this:

Note that the second to last screen says the disk was "not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match".

I have no idea where to go from here.

Easy responses would be "the disk is bad" or "the disk is old and no longer supported".  I doubt that either is the case.  The disk worked fine until it was excised from the machine and replaced four months ago.  Since then, it's been stored carefully and not subjected to impact, moisture, extremes of temperature, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Install and upgrade

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-07-10T20:33:19+00:00

    No, according to diskpart, there are no other volumes or partitions on the disk.

    This disk used to be my C: drive, which is why, I'm guessing, the existing partition is the System Reserved partition.  Could that somehow be the source of the issue?  I don't see why it would be, but I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff.  I think, though, that I've made this process work in the past in similar cases where the outboard HDD had been the C: on another machine.

    chkdsk /f finds nothing wrong with the disk.

    So I'm now a bit confused.  Are you saying that, given that chkdsk finds no problem with the disk, it's now worth trying a third-party utility in the hopes of finding a problem with the disk that chkdsk doesn't?

    My gut, for what it's worth, is telling me that this is not a problem with the disk itself.  I think there's some problem with way I'm trying to mount it.  I'm tempted to also say that maybe there's some incompatibility between OS, driver, controller, and/or disk but, given that this disk used to be my C:, I don't think that's it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-07-10T20:38:23+00:00

    chkdsk /r also finds nothing wrong with the disk.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-07-10T20:42:02+00:00

    Paul, Disk Check only checks the files system that resides on the disk or chip. Only Diagnostics confirm the condition of the underlying drive itself.

    Best is bootable Seatools long test: http://blog.nowherelan.com/2013/04/04/boot-seat...

    But you can use any of the installed versions I linked too.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-07-10T21:48:02+00:00

    I downloaded and installed SeaTools and ran it on the disk.  The disk fails.  No further details are provided.  What do you make of that?  I'm guessing this implies that the disk is bad.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-07-10T21:50:59+00:00

    Yes.

    I'd replace it with an SSD which is the best upgrade you can give your PC - lightning fast, better than a new higher end PC without one - swap it in and do the Clean Install in the link below:

    Do this Clean Install which should get you past all difficulties as it has hundreds of thousands of others who have followed the steps in this link and never come back to report another problem: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...

    You will get and keep the best possible install to the exact extent you stick with the steps, tools and methods in the linked tutorial. It's a better install than any amount of money could buy and a great learning experience that will make you the master of your PC.

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