I'm running Windows 11 on an HP 14-fa0023dx laptop and tried cloning its internal drive to a same-size external hard drive with Macrium Reflect Free. The clone failed at 92%, and afterward Windows stopped detecting the external drive. It spins for a few seconds when connected, then disconnects and shows "USB device not recognized" with an "Unknown USB Device (Set Address Failed)" error. I've already tried another USB cable, reinstalling and updating the device drivers, running the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter, and disabling Device Encryption. The drive doesn't appear in Disk Management, DiskPart's "list disk" output, or CrystalDiskInfo. Is there anything else I can try?
1 Answer
If the drive doesn’t appear in Disk Management, DiskPart, or CrystalDiskInfo, this probably isn’t a partition or formatting problem. DiskPart’s clean command won’t help unless Windows can detect the disk, and using it would erase any accessible data. Try another computer and, if it’s a bare drive in a USB enclosure, test a different enclosure or SATA-to-USB adapter. If it still spins briefly and disconnects everywhere, the drive or its USB bridge has likely failed. Stop repeated cloning attempts and consider professional data recovery if the files matter.
I checked DiskPart and only the internal drive appears, so the external disk isn’t being detected at all. I’ll test it on another system and with a different adapter before assuming the drive itself has failed.