Hey everyone, I'm having trouble with my 5TB Seagate Expansion HDD that I use to store my photos as a photographer. It doesn't show up on my PC, even though Disk Management detects it. I've tried it on my laptop too, but I get the same result. I've also swapped out the cable, but that didn't help either. The drive stays connected for about a minute before disconnecting on its own, and I'm really worried that I might lose all my photos. Any thoughts on what could be going wrong? I'd really appreciate any help!
3 Answers
What file system are you using, and what's the operating system on the devices you're trying to connect to?
How old is the drive? Sometimes drives can fail as they age, regardless of how careful you are with them.
It's about two years old.
Did you drop your HDD at all? Just a reminder, as a photographer, you should always follow the 3-2-1 backup rule: have three copies of your important files, with two on different types of media and one in a different location. Data recovery can get super expensive and might not even be possible. You might want to check out some resources on data recovery.
I didn't drop it or see any physical damage. The issue just started happening randomly.
I've tried it on my desktop with Windows 8, my school laptop with Windows 10, and even a borrowed one with Windows 11, but it still won’t work.