My external hard drive is showing up but not working!

[Alkey]

I switched to zorin recently, as a new bee, i can't fix it myself!

So here is the problem:
-My external hard drive decided to stop working!
And i can't even format it!
Check this:

And this is all I can do:

When I click on "change mounting option":

Can anyone help me fix the problem?

Thank you!!

[Alkey]

please some help!!

swarfendor437

Michel

[337harvey]

You are hooking it up by usb? Have you tried any of the other usb slots? If it fails to spin, which either is the case or the motor for the read arms is shot, there isn't much that can be done. Opening it will allow dust in, possibly corrupting the data that is on it. If it's an ssd, there is no recovering what is on the drive either... limited number of read/ write operations.

Gparted may be able to look at it where disks cannot... but that won't help if it's a mechanical malfunction. Sorry.

[swarfendor437]

I would advise running the SMART tools in Disks to check the drive's integrity:

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/disk-check.html.en

[joshuaorbit]

Run a Live session (via a USB stick) of Zorin (or Ubuntu) and select the TRY option in the first selection menu's.
Connect the harddrive to a USB-slot and see if your Live-OS picks it up.
Open via the global menu Gparted .... see if your disk is recognized in Gparted's menu's.
Try to wipe the disk first or write a new partition table with the msdos-option.
Select the entire space for formatting it to exFAT or NTFS, or ext4 (select this if the external disk is for Linux only). Ext4 format could take a little time. There should not be any error prompt at this moment.
If the operation is done -- go for a REBOOT to the OS on your disk and remove the USB Live session stick.
Try to use the external disk.
Should those steps not work: your disk needs to be replaced with a new SSD-version one.
It is rare .... but sometimes external HDD go faulty on the electronic connections inside the case unit, and sometimes mechanical parts can be jammed.
So run the Live-session and see if Gparted can save your disk.

[JeffK969]

When you installed Zorin, was that drive plugged in?
I vaguely remember seeing something similar years ago...
If possible, try this. Unplug that hard drive & reboot. Power off,
plug in and boot. Hope that may help...