External Hard Drive Not Recognized by PC (Windows 11) and Files History Will Not Turn On.

Question

I am unable to back up my files to my external hard drive which is my goal before it goes in for repairs. I cannot turn it on because it is grayed out. It continues to tell me it has already backed up information. The external hard drive device cannot be found under any control panel, settings, device manager, hidden places etc.. But the light is on which says it is working. I have one day left to figure this mess out. Super frustrating. All I wanted to do was a backup to an external hard drive in case I lost anything during the repair it was going in for.

Answer 1

My external drives were showing up as "RAW" and not accessible. I looked for a S/W recovery tool but then noticed in the "Computer Managment" that the drive was present (actually I had 4 different). the partition seemed to be present but yet still not visible in anything (e.g. file manager). What I tried next was perhaps foolhardy (cause I couldn't find anyone suggesting) but worked for me. I clicked on the main partition (not the boot, the next one, the big one) And I right clicked to the menu item "Change Drive Letter and Paths...". Next I assigned the partition a letter and shazam, everything on the drive is visible again. I don't understand yet why this worked nor what the original issue was. But assigning drive letter(s) to the partitions "cured" my issue on all 4 external drives I was using at the time. Good Luck, YMMV