I was using the device fine, had it for about 6 months, then all of a sudden my PC lags out. One day my PC froze, I restarted my PC and now every time I plug in my device, I can hear the fan running inside for about 3 seconds and then it stops. Light is on, but I hear nothing inside the machine, and while the now unmarked CD drive shows up when I click “this PC” in file explorer and click “Devices and drives” it doesn’t have the usual unlocker icon, and shows to have no file space. Double clicking on it makes this pop up appear:
“Location is not available
G:\ is not accessible.
The request could not be performed because of an I/O Device error.”
To be clear, I was able to access data before this random event occured, now every time I try to access the unlocker that shows up instead. The H: drive, which would be the actual passport itself, does not show up under devices and drives, but when I go into device manager it shows up under disk drives.
I’ve tried plugging the drive into other PCs, I’ve tried about 4 family computers in total so far all running Windows 10 to no avail. I keep Windows 10 up to date, and need help on this ASAP because there’s family photos on this thing.
My next best idea is to try and get another cable for the passport, but in this day and age it’s not allowed to walk into a computer store and ask questions.
I don’t know where to go for this kind of support, but I’m trying my best to find avenues to find help. I assumed the WD forums would suffice.
Whenever there is a “disk unknown not initialized" issue or I/O device error occurs, your hard drive may show unallocated space in Disk Management, and the data on which will be inaccessible or else there is another situation: there is no disk space shown in Disk Management.
Below are the 2 different methods to resolve the issue:
Method 1. Use Disk Management to fix not initialized error on an external hard drive
Connect the uninitialized external hard drive to your PC.
Press Win + R keys, type: diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Find the uninitialized, unknown external hard drive with I/O device error > Right-click on it and select Initialize Disk.
Then set the disk to initialize and set the disk as MBR or GPT.
After this, you may reboot your PC and keep all changes. Now, your external hard drive will be recognized and read by Windows again.
Method 2. Run CMD to repair I/O device error on not initialized external hard drive
This CMD command would erase all data on the uninitialized hard drive, which you can later restore after repairing the external hard drive not initialized, with the help of any data recovery or partition recovery software:
Press Win+R > Type: diskpart and hit Enter.
Type: list disk and hit Enter.
Type: select disk F and hit Enter; (replace F with the drive letter of an uninitialized external hard drive) .
Type: clean and hit Enter.
Type: convert gpt or convert mbr and hit Enter.
Type: create partition primary and hit Enter.
Type: format quick fs=ntfs and hit Enter.
Type: assign and hit Enter.
Type: exit and hit Enter.
To recover your data from the affected drive you need the help of reliable data recovery software. Here, I suggest you to check out Stellar Data Recovery Professional Software to recover your data from the affected drive.