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Question

My External HDD won't show up in windows.

Aug 22, 2016 4:28AM PDT

I know this tends to be a fairly common problem with HDD's. Sometimes another partition needs to be opened for you to access it or you just need to change the drive initial etc. But my problem seems fairly unique and i can't find any info about it on Google so here goes.

I'm running windows 10 on the Lenovo z50 and soo far I've had few problems with it. But today i plugged in My external Iomega HDD 1tb and tried to access it. The drive made all the usual noises and showed up in the windows utility as usb serial ATA bridge. It does not however show up in file explorer or anywhere else. So i did all the suggested things, looked it up in device manager, uninstalled the driver etc. Nothing seems to work. The unique thing about this though is that it's showing up in my device manager as ' SAMSUNG HD103SI' which can't be the case as it's clearly not from that company.

It works perfectly fine if i plug it into my TV. It is recognised and plays media. but i cannot access it in any way on my laptop. Please help as i'm lost for answers here.

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Sorry but I missed one fine clue in your post.
Aug 22, 2016 5:05PM PDT

There are Samsungs that record to HDD and that is in the XFS file system.

There are also folk that want to play that content on a PC or anything else other than this Samsung TV.

Keeping in mind the hundreds of prior discussions this is fact:
1. Samsung formats the drive in XFS.
2. The files have no known player for any other PC or device.

Post was last edited on August 22, 2016 5:09 PM PDT

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So if the HD itself is Samsung. .
Aug 22, 2016 5:16PM PDT

And has formatted all my files as XFS is there some way for me to reverse this?

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It's a little tough to write.
Aug 22, 2016 5:42PM PDT

But changing the drive format is not done by reversal or conversion. You simply remove the partitions and start over how you want this to work.

Given there is no way to get Samsung recorded content to play anywhere but that TV you have to tell or decide how you want to use this drive.

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I should point out that
Aug 22, 2016 5:50PM PDT

I've been using the iomega drive with my tv and my laptop for ages and have never had this issue or been asked to configure the HD differentely for either devices. This literally started yesterday. I'm gonna upload some screens of how it's showing up in storage and the event logs which are showing text that's never been there before.

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Below you wrote about the old and new TV.
Aug 22, 2016 6:09PM PDT

LG may have done this another way, Samsung's recording is on XFS so again, I have yet to find you really write enough for me to "write exactly what is going on."

You are welcome to load up pictures but I bet they won't tell me what I want to know. That is, if you recorded from the Samsung or used Samsung pause or other features that write to the drive.

Once you decide how the drive is to be used, then we make it so.

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HD only used as a playback
Aug 22, 2016 6:18PM PDT

On my LG HD. Never used recording or any other feature with it. I've used my laptop for about a year writing recorded files and music to it and using the tv to playback those files. This has never involved configuration or recording or any features of any kind other than selecting 'mass storage device' on my tv to play the files.

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Since it's just that.
Aug 22, 2016 7:27PM PDT

Time to reformat it and put the files back onto the drive.

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How does this kind of thing
Aug 22, 2016 7:43PM PDT

Happen? It's just odd that I've NEVER tampered with the Iomega HD ever. I've been able to move files for ages and playing them on my TV and have never had to deal with partitions or file system settings etc.

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How has been asked 100K times or more.
Aug 23, 2016 8:33AM PDT

Content loss is such an issue with PCs and devices that you see a lot of discussions about backup. How to, and so on.

-> Also, it's possible for errors to occur over time (operating systems are not perfect) so I would not use a drive for years without a fresh start or at least a CHKDSK.

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Answer
It's usually a file system issue.
Aug 22, 2016 8:13AM PDT

Look in Disk Management to see if it shows up there and see if you have the Assign Drive letter option. Do not force this. It's a simple thing I check.

After that I put on a PC that it works on to copy out files then on the W10 machine I'll use disk management to remove all the partitions from that drive, create a new partition and format it. For me that works if the drive is good.

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Answer
The Drive is a Samsung
Aug 22, 2016 2:24PM PDT

Actually ioMega has never made hard drives, only external cases. So the internal drive is almost certainly a Samsung drive model HD103SI as it says. Most likely the issue is related to how the drive was formatted by the TV (I assume you let the TV somehow configure the drive?). If I had to guess, I'd suspect it's using a sort of Linux format for the drive, and you might be able to access it using Paragon ExtFS for Windows: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/

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Positive Lead
Aug 22, 2016 5:20PM PDT

Thank you for your help. That sounds like a pretty likely explanation. Samsung do manafacture parts for Apple after all (ironically). So hopefully this program should help me to reverse the re formatting of my files or at least be a work around for it's access? Thanks I'll try this and get back to you.

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Also I should add
Aug 22, 2016 5:26PM PDT

That I've been using this Iomega in tandem with both my LG Hd smart tv and my lenovo for quite a while now and I've never configured the drive for the tv before so I don't think it's that though clearly something happened.

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Answer
Media requires...
Aug 23, 2016 8:21AM PDT

Often enough if the ext. HD was used prior to any PC usage, it may have been setup for TV alone. That means the media setup is different from PC setup and overall, its actually working the i/f between the two is different. Alas, since it states Samsung xxx, it really showing the actual HD installed *IN* in the HD cases.

Offhand, unless you try some converter s/w to acknowledge what's present and taking the risk as well, you may be able to xfer data/storage to the PC. Then format the ext. HD using NTFS and then return to the TV and see if it gets along. Check your model TV manual and see what is required -OR- defaulted for ext. media usage or what's available for format as well. These are all vary from TV to TV brands and even models, while some std. is present you can't always fall that is will work across the board.

I'm basically agree with Robert posts. I can only *assume* there maybe some media converter to get it all sorted, but again if XFS as stated is the format, you google from there. Even so, when returned to the TV it may again reset back as before for media storage.

Possible?? http://forum.samygo.tv/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1560

good luck -----Willy Happy

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Answer
Does the Drive Show Up in Disk Management?
Aug 31, 2016 11:06AM PDT

First, let’s check whether Windows detects the drive when you plug it in. Plug your removable drive into your computer. If it’s an external hard drive, you may have to flip a power switch on the hard drive to activate it. Some heavy-duty removable hard drives may even have to be plugged in with a separate power cable before they’ll work.

Next, open the Disk Management tool. To do so, press Windows Key + R, type diskmgmt.msc into the Run dialog, and press Enter.