I fixed our neighbor’s laptop the other day, and I plugged my USB hard drive into it to transfer some files. After I plugged the drive back into my own computer, Windows 7 suddenly couldn’t access the disk (notice the drive space indicator disappeared in the first screenshot, below.
No amount of fiddling with the security/permissions/owner would bring it back, either.
This fix is to use the “icalcs” tool to reset the drive’s permissions. To do so, follow these steps:Launch the Command Prompt as an administrator (Start > Search for “cmd” > Right-click on “cmd.exe” and select “Run as Administrator”)
- Switch to your drive that is having problems (replace H: with your drive letter): CD /D H:
- Type: icacls * /T /Q /C /RESET
- Wait for a while. Mine took about 10-15 minutes.
When it’s done, you should be able to access the drive as normal.
Sources:
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what if there is no drive letter even assigned and it says
Disk 1
unknown
Not Initialized
above is what it says where the drive should be listed…just wondering if ya can help me out.
Is this THE Fred Shirley?
I’d try going to Disk Management (right-click on My Computer, go to Manage, then to Disk Management). Can you initialize the disk and assign a drive letter from that interface?
lol…yep it is!
i have tried doing what you mentioned that is how i have gotten to this point. when i had XP on the computer no problems now that i have windows 7…problems with this external drive.
when i do what you are asking it says I must initialize the drive and gives me 2 options to partition the disk both of which give me this result…incorrect function. got any ideas?
Hmm. Do you have an XP computer you can plug it into? Maybe delete the drive and reformat using XP, and then see if 7 will recognize it. Unless of course you need to get the data off of it first?
used the xp computer I have laying around and sure enough the external hard drive is fried…so that was the problem.
now to find a new external hard drive…stink! actually is there any way to get the info off of it?