It's 1am and I'm tired for a change. Going to get some rest since it's been some long days since this nonsense started. Going to let the long tests run over night and report back tomorrow.
Once again Greg, thank you for your ongoing help.
Win10 2004 suddenly removed access to multiple external hard drives. In desperate need of help [ cannot find a solution :( ]
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Anonymous
Hey everyone,
Name is Antonio and I'm not a regular here. But going to give this a shot and hope that the great minds here can help me get access to my 5 External Hard Drives. The brief story:
Updated to Win10 2004 a couple of weeks ago and everything was fine until a few days ago when Windows does what it normally does, break down in random areas and causes aggravation and headaches. I won't bore anyone with the large list of issues that kept growing daily, except the one that suddenly removed my access to multiple external HDD's. These hard drives house a host of my backup files (photos/videos/programs/music and more) and my video editing files for my job as well. All of a sudden my 12TB G-Speed Studio and 2 WD drives disappeared. A few hours later my 2 WD drives reappeared with the message telling me I don't have permission to access the drives. I did some reading and research and thought the permissions was the issue, however it is not and I had zero success with so many methods i've found on this site and around the web. Maybe it is, but everything i've tried regarding permissions is not working.
I went ahead and downloaded version 1909 from someplace and loaded 1909 yesterday and spent 10 hours working on getting my computer back to "normal" Still not done but whatever. Still didn't have access to the drives. Went ahead and did everything I already tried a second time with no success.
I brought the drives over to my Win7 Laptop and couldn't fix the issue there either.
I just tried doing random things that no one would normally do to their functioning hard drive just to see if I could accidentally fix the issue, but to no avail, nothing worked. I ended up formatting one of my WD drives as it only had specific files I already had backed up to another drive very recently. This wasn't a loss but my other drive is going to be if I cannot gain access. Same goes for my 12TB G-Speed
I'm at a major loss right now. While I'm still pissed at MS for this junk beta OS that I have no choice to use, I need to get passed this anger and solve this issue. I cannot do it alone and need anyone's help. I'm willing to try whatever I need to do without question or hesitation. I NEED this drive as I haven't gotten around to backing it up which was going to happen in another week when my new HDD arrives.
I greatly appreciate any and all help! :)
Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage
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.
49 answers
Sort by: Newest
-
Anonymous
2020-07-26T05:02:01+00:00 -
Anonymous
2020-07-26T04:40:31+00:00 If the drives show up but are inaccessible in Windows 7, too, then this is not Windows 10's fault. There is something that was done to the drives, requiring the data be moved off, drives wiped with Diskpart and reformatted as Data drives in Disk mgmt:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85819-erase...
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-format-new-h...
If problems persist I'd run the hard drive diagnostics:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-hard-drive-testin...
Best is to use the manufacturer's own if there is one, otherwise use Seatools bootable long test: http://blog.nowherelan.com/2013/04/04/boot-seat...
With all the drives connected please post a screenshot of Disk Management, which I read like a doctor reads X-rays. Follow the steps here so I can see everything needed to advise you: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/foru...
I understand you know a lot more about this than I do, but I still feel this is Win10's fault. I've been using these drives for awhile under Windows 7. Only recently started using Windows 10 for about 3 months now. Never had OS issues until the recent 2004 update. Never had HDD issues until things started going wrong (Windows update broke with constant errors and wouldn't work, MS Store wouldn't find updates, download current pending updates and randomly brought us .Net Framework downloads that it couldn't download from 2013, 2015 and 2017, Couldn't install anything from the store as well. Game Pass games would crash immediately because they couldn't either sign me in or non-game pass games wouldn't work because they couldn't connect to MS Store to check for updates. Certain app/programs wouldn't work either if they were from MS. My PC started to randomly shutdown and restart on it's own unrelated to updates because the updater was broken. It was following one of these random shutdowns that the drives became inaccessible.
Permissions all show that I had and have the permissions to access them, but I can't access them. Makes no sense to me :( I really can't lose the data on some of these drives.
I already ran diagnostics on the drives and nothing is wrong. Is that possible? I honestly have no problem starting fresh with these drives, but I NEED these files.
Just wanted to add that info before I continue. Maybe it might help? Thank you for your continued assistance.
-
Anonymous
2020-07-26T04:21:59+00:00 If the drives show up but are inaccessible in Windows 7, too, then this is not Windows 10's fault. There is something that was done to the drives, requiring the data be moved off, drives wiped with Diskpart and reformatted as Data drives in Disk mgmt:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85819-erase...
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-format-new-h...
If problems persist I'd run the hard drive diagnostics:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-hard-drive-testin...
Best is to use the manufacturer's own if there is one, otherwise use Seatools bootable long test: http://blog.nowherelan.com/2013/04/04/boot-seat...
With all the drives connected please post a screenshot of Disk Management, which I read like a doctor reads X-rays. Follow the steps here so I can see everything needed to advise you: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/foru...
-
Anonymous
2020-07-26T04:02:37+00:00 Hi,
Most likely something happened with your Login and\or Account.. A slight change could lock you out..
You probably need to take Ownership of the drives and Add yourself as a User with Full Permissions.. Or you could set the Owner as "Everyone" and add Everyone as a User with Full Permissions..
A lot of times people will change the Ownership of a folder or drive, but not add that Owner as a User.. A reasonable person would think that the User would be changed automatically along with the Owner, but it does not work that way..
I will include the steps just in case...
To add a user, select Security Tab... click on EDIT and select ADD....then
- Advanced
- Find Now
- Select User from list...Your user name, or any you want to add.
To Change Ownership and add OwnerName as a USER
Select Security Tab and then ADVANCED at the bottom.
Here you can edit the permissions for existing users and\or add another..
Click "CHANGE" next to the current Owner, Then....
- Advanced
- Find Now
- Select User from list...Your user name, or any you want to add
- Check the box "Replace Owner On Subcontainers and Objects" and hit "APPLY"
Once you have Ownership you can then ADD your Account as mentioned above, and Delete or EDIT the other Accounts...
Hey Slance,
Thank you for your reply. I saw some of your help on the forums as well and tried them with no success. I also tried what you mentioned above several times on all drives and nothing worked :(
-
Anonymous
2020-07-26T03:57:33+00:00 - When 2004 was still installed, System Restore failed 3 times. And each time it told me that it failed it told me I should undo the failure. I clicked OK and even that failed. But It didn't seem to anything as well. So I suppose the failure failed? I reluctantly tried reset this PC thereafter with yet another failure to go back. Since I couldn't revert to the previous version of Windows either, I downloaded an ISO of 1909. In recovery ever since.
I should note that I installed sledgehammer to stop all the updates and give me full control when I want to search and update when I choose. Like the good days of Windows 7.
- The drives show up in Disk Management & File Explorer and the drive letters are still the same from before this issue. I even tried changing the drive letter on the drive I already reformatted, with no success as well. The Letter changes, but still no access.
- These drives are connected via USB 3.0 from different enclosures, and thunderbolt for the G Speed. Thankfully they all show up under version 1909, just not accessible
- No option to Roll Back Driver. After uninstalling "Best driver already installed" from automatic search. Manual search yielded same result. Let me pick installed the driver it displayed successfully, however, still not accessible.
- Roll back drivers unavailable on all USB Enhanced, Hub and Host controllers. Following all uninstallations and reboot, still not accessible.
7.Ran disk checks yesterday and earlier today and a few basic errors were fixed in free space, but aside from that nothing major. Still inaccessible.
8.These drives show up on my Windows 7 Laptop, the same way they're showing up on Win10 but inaccessible. Cannot open them or see anything files.
As you can see I attached an image of what im dealing with these drives. Just going to work on one at a time at this point. I'm sure once a solution is found, it should work for all of them! I hope!