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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

53 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2018-07-19T15:43:51+00:00

    OK, so how exactly do I get to that "desktop".  See my prior post.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2018-07-19T15:41:53+00:00

    If you look back in this thread, you'll see that my ThisPC shows the disk as present, and having non-zero capacity and non-zero space used.  But when I double-click into the drive, it says there are no files to display.

    So it seems that ThisPC is able to read something from the drive.  Someone suggested above that it's seeing aspects of the file system, but not the files itself.  I don't know enough about these things to do anything useful with that information, though.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2018-07-19T15:22:44+00:00

    Hi,

    Sorry I wasn't more clear... The File Explorer is part of Parted Magic once it completes booting... It is on the upper left corner of the Parted Magic Desktop...

    I have a perfectly good 2TB drive that is showing as "Unallocated" in the Partition Editor... Which is probably the program you used...

    It gives some type of error concerning whether the dive is a GPT or MBR Type.. No matter which I choose, it appears as "Unallocated"...

    If I open the drive with the File Explorer, the drive and all of it's contents appear, and can be copied\deleted and etc... I don't know what the deal is with that... I have four drives, and this 2TB is the only one with issues...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2018-07-19T13:54:05+00:00

    I've moved things around on my desktop, deleted some things, and added others.  The upper left-hand corner of my desktop is empty.  What does the icon for the the File Manager look like?  Or, is there a command-line command I can use to launch it?

    It's had various names over the years.  "This PC" or "File Explorer" both work.  Type this or file in the Cortana search bar.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2018-07-19T12:29:43+00:00

    When Partition Magic opens up, the user is shown a pretty rudimentary UI, much like that of a BIOS.  The UI presents a list of options.  If the user doesn't choose one in roughly thirty seconds or so, it automatically chooses the first choice.  That led me down the path I related in my prior posts.

    Other choices in that top-level menu seemed to be alternative GUIs.  Maybe the file recovery utilities are buried therein?  I'd just give it a try, but it's time consuming to reboot the computer, try it, then reboot again to return to normal operations.

    Thanks.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments