Lost Partition
A black bar in Disk Management means that the partition has become lost. At this point, we
must ensure the safety of your data.
Is the data on this drive backed up elsewhere, or do you need to try to recover it?
If you were unable to access the data, please
contact Seagate Recovery Services
assistance in recovering your data.
If you have data saved elsewhere, proceed with the diagnostis and reformat instructions.
Diagnostics and Reformat
Since the data is backed up or you do not need it, we can proceed to diagnostics and
reformatting the drive.
Warning: Formatting the drive will erase all the data on the drive.
1.
Perform a diagnostic on the drive with SeaTools for DOS. See
instructions.
If the drive fails, please
begin a warranty replacement order online
If the drive passes,
reformat the drive using Windows Disk Management.
Reset the Drive Letter
If the drive is no longer detected in (My) Computer / This PC or Windows File Explorer but it is
displaying a blue bar in Disk Management, Windows has probably lost track of the drive letter.
Please follow these steps:
Attempt to perform a
checkdisk
action on the drive. See
instructions.
Remove any potential conflicts:
Power down the computer.
Disconnect all other storage devices, external hard drives, thumb drives,
printers, and cameras.
Power the computer up again and retry detection.