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External storage options by Seagate, usually connected by USB, available in many storage sizes and form factors.

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Why external hard drive not showing up in my computer?

My 320 GB Seagate external hard drive is detected but not showing up in my computer. What should I do?

In disk management it shows up as 'unallocated'. If I initialize it, will I lose all data on the drive? It had 4 partitions.

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In Device Manager it gets detected.

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In cmd> diskpart> list volume it does not show up.

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In My Computer also it does not show up.

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Even BIOS recognizes it.

What to do? I don't want to lose any data on the drive. If I initialize it in device manager will I lose data?

I was installing window XP on my computer, usually I remove the external drive but this time I did not. The external drive was shown as 4 drives in partition manager during installation. But the installation failed. The next time I was installing windows again, the external drive was shown as 1 single unknown or unrecognized drive. I'm not sure if it was unknown or unrecognized. I'm sure I didn't format it. So what I need to do now? I don't want to lose any data.

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This question was migrated from http://meta.ifixit.com/Answers.

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Help us help you. The more complete the description of your problem is (what DEVICE you're using - there are many. What OS you're using -there's a lot of those too) the more assistance we can provide, and, the sooner we can provide it..

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Most Helpful Answer

Yes when you initialize a drive you will erase data.

Since you didn't provide a device I'll give a WAG to your WAQ. I'll bet the driver for your drive may not exist on a system as old as XP.' Check the SEAGATE site for the driver.

OR the drive was formatted in a FAT that XP can't read.

If this answer is acceptable please remember to return and mark it.

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