Lost access to Seagate external usb drive

Went through my worst week ever with Windows since I built my 1st PC in the Win 3.11 days. For a week almost I was restoring and re-restoring various Win 10 Acronis tibs because my system kept locking up with the little circle spinning at start up or shut down...pretty much all the time

Finally (thank goodness) I found that if I removed my Seagate USB Backup Plus external USB drive cord...everything was back to normal. Problem is I have a lot of stuff on this external USB drive including most recent Acronis backups and Windows files backups and Windows image backup.

I'm back up and running....but....I still can't access this external USB drive....and I occasionally have to unplug the USB connection to get things going at shut down or startup. Wired thing is Windows is finding the drive...I just can't access it (JPEG's attached)

Note: In one pic...when I try to populate the drive I just get the never ending circle again...and initially the drive was showing up as Drive I...not Seagate....etc

Any USB experts that can help me get back into the problem drive so I can copy all that good stuff to another HDD or external drive ?

Thanks....TiminAz

1. OK, you have a problem only when you plug-in your Seagate 3TB Backup plus external drive into your self-built PC running Windows 10 Pro 64bit . Without that drive plugged in, your system is running fine. Answer Yes / No

2. Please remove all external storage devices - external HDDs, Flash drives, hubs, docks, card readers - plugged into your system and post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management. I want to see only the internal drives on your system. Please read this tutorial Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of General Tips Tutorials and adhere to the guidelines in it to post an untruncated full screen shot with all information clearly visible.

3. Now plugin only your Seagate 3TB external drive. Tell us what exactly happens. Post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management with only this external drive plugged in.

When I posted this....yes system was running fine....but now I can't get by the initial bios screen....."press delete or F2 to enter bios"...system just freezes at that screen....Del or F2

May have encountered this a few years ago and seem to remember what the problem then was/is back then.....will post back with progress

Thanks for your reply......TiminAz

OK, get your system right and straight with the help of other experts here ( you may open a new thread for it ) and then I shall look into your external drive problem

OR

If you have another Desktop/laptop that you could run till we try and resolve your external drive problem, plugin your problem drive and tell us what exactly happens plus post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management as per 2 and 3 of my post #2 and we shall go ahead with the troubleshooting process.

Also please note the different time zones that may prolong the troubleshooting process.

Thanks....apparently I have dual issues going on..
..removed the Seagate drive connectons....things were fine...restored a very recent Acronis system tib and things were fine Fri nite and Saturday...until about 2 pm

Then I started to get freezes at the bios screen to press F2 or Delete....nothing happened...couldn't get past bios start screen

Disconnected 4 disk drives one by one...but still had bios locked screen
Disconnected the Windows drive and same...no bios

Then I noticed a small red led in the case next to boot drive label

Checked Asus manual for this light and it indeed says issues with boot drive...so I'm assuming my main windows drive is failing

Plan is to install a new 3.5 Sara drive and restore one of my most recent tibs....also have system backups and Windows image restore on various backup drives....hopefully I'll be up and running without a total reinstall of a clean Windows...
Thanks for your efforts to date...
TiminAz

I have a deep hatred of Acronis software! most people on this forum prefer Macrium Reflect.

For your original problem - Boot your PC without the offending drive connected. Then connect the drive and review the partitions using MiniTool Partition Wizard (MTPW) Free. Look for any partitions on the USB drive marked Active and change them to Inactive using MTPW.

For your new boot problem, get KHYI's repair disk from this forum and boot from it to diagnose your PC. You can use the Macrium Reflect Fix Boot option to attempt to repair your boot disk.

Steve C said:

I have a deep hatred of Acronis software! most people on this forum prefer Macrium Reflect.
For your new boot problem, get KHYI's repair disk from this forum and boot from it to diagnose your PC. You can use the Macrium Reflect Fix Boot option to attempt to repair your boot disk.

Thanks...haven't been able to find subject repair disk download (KHYI's repair disk ) - please send link for location and/or download

TiminAz

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk

Thanks to all that helped....solved issues....looks like both my dvd drive, Seagate External USB drive, and maybe the windows C: drive failed or are failing (hardware failure ?) That's apparently why my MB's led re boot devices was blinking on all startups

Disconnect all drives (multiple ide's and sata's) and restarted/reconnected one by one...system will not boot with DVD drive or Seagate external usb drive connected...but will with Windows C: (sata) connected

Usb problem drive also would not be recognized by my Win 10 laptop either...kept assigning it as the "I" (same as PC) drive but would freeze laptop also on boot or clicking on properties for "I" drive

Ordered new DVD from amazon last night...should have everything up and running by mid week