Why my “Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB Hard Drive” will not appear on my computer?

Just try to watch a movie on Xbox360 but the USB was not recognizable. So my brother he clicked on"configure USB Drive" and he click on "customize". Few seconds later the screen froze, restarted the Xbox360, but it still not working.

We give on watching movie on Xbox360, going back to PC, but it would not appear on "my computer". Try other USB drive works perfectly but Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB Drive just don't work. The light is on and it shows on the "Devices and Printers" but I can't not open or brows the files in the drive.

I have a Sony VAIO series laptop, Windows 7. The Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB Drive is the exact same one like this one.

http://www.prlog.org/10180110-seagate-freeagent-desktop-500gb-external-hard-drive-st305004fdd1e1-rk.html

I don't know what to do, I have important stuff on that hard drive. Someone help me please!!!

Risako N

Posted 2012-07-23T21:28:57.353

Reputation: 17

possible duplicate of Seagate FreeAgent Portable Drive suddenly doesn't want to open

– James Mertz – 2012-07-26T01:03:01.133

Answers

This is normal and doesn't indicate a problem. Hard drives never appear under "My Computer". People think they're supposed to because mounted partitions with associated drive letters appear there.

Where it says Hard Disk Drives, it actually means mounted partitions on hard disk drives. Microsoft, trying to make things simple, actually created a significant source of confusion. If you take a close look with the other USB drive. You'll see it's not the drive that appears there but a mounted partition on the drive, with an associated drive letter, that appears. (That's why drives with two associated partitions appear twice.)

If the drive appears under Devices, then nothing is wrong. You can manage the drive from the Disk Manager. Type drvmgmt.msc into the Run bar.

David Schwartz

Posted 2012-07-23T21:28:57.353

Reputation: 58 310

I have the exact same issue - I was able to view it in Disk Management, but how the heck do I browse the files/folders on it? It appears as "Disk 1", it says it's online, and it's divided into 3 sections: 1) 200 MB (with no file system type specified) Healthy (EFI System Partition), 2) 931.19 GB, Healthy (Primary Partition), and 3) 128 MB, Unallocated. The only actions I can find are "Convert to Dynamic Disk", "Create VHD", and "Attach VHD". Am I missing something? This seems way too complicated for just viewing files on an external drive. – jbyrd – 2015-07-23T01:23:55.477

@jbyrd Right-click on the partition you want to access and assign it a drive letter. – David Schwartz – 2015-07-23T19:04:51.027

But when I used it yesterday, it appear on "Computer"'s Hard Dis Drive. What do I do when I get to Disk Manager and what can I do to fixed this problem? – Risako N – 2012-07-23T23:06:22.333

There's no problem to fix, this is all normal behavior. You just need to learn how to use the Disk Management to manage your disks. The problem is the belief that because it sometimes happens to do what you want by luck, it will always magically do what you want and the assumption that Hard Disk Drives should appear under My Computer. They should not as that would be almost unusably confusing. (Imagine if a disk drive had two filesystems on it. If you dragged a file to the drive, which filesystem should it go to?)

– David Schwartz – 2012-07-24T00:03:37.857

I understand what you mean. The only thing is that I can't even open up the files on the hard drive. That's what it is. – Risako N – 2012-07-24T00:37:09.703

You need to mount the partition before you can open the files. – David Schwartz – 2012-07-24T00:40:57.000

How do you do that? Can you help me please? – Risako N – 2012-07-24T02:20:14.600

Follow the link in my first comment to instructions on how to use Disk Management. – David Schwartz – 2012-07-24T02:26:12.940

1I already follow your instruction, but still I cannot open the hard drive. – Risako N – 2012-07-24T22:15:09.987

How far do you get? What goes wrong? – David Schwartz – 2012-07-24T22:15:23.497

I'd try to right click My Computer then select Manage then find the storage tool. Go to Disk Management. When it comes up select the disk that probably has no letter (watch out there is a system hidden partition on the same disk as your operating system, don't mess with it!).

Right click and tell it to assign the letter to mount the drive too. If all works and you got this far then I believe you should see it again under My Computer.

If you can see it you'll be able to tell if your files are there or not. I did this back in 2007 and now forgotten how to do it again. Xbox configures and when it does I think it causes it to un-mount the drive from a letter so when plugging it back into anything would not see it as a mountable drive – it therefore did not show up in My Computer.

Also try to see if adding new hardware would work. Or check the Device Manager to see if USB Mass storage is there. See if the software it came with would be able to fix it. I still believe that mounting it would be what it is.

Rod Warrix

Posted 2012-07-23T21:28:57.353

Reputation: 21