Are there any Windows 8 experts here?

I'm having a strange problem with an external hard drive in Windows 8. I've tried using Google, and a bunch of tech sites, but I can't seem to find a solution to this problem.

Are there any computer techs with Windows 8 knowledge here?

I'm not a computer tech and I hope some one else will post an answer. I had a problem with an external hard drive. After much testing and reading, it was determined the external hard drive had failed, which ruined all of my data.

What exactly is your EHD doing? Any error messages?

Toms Hardware is a good help site
http://www.tomshardware.com/

I like Major Geeks
http://www.majorgeeks.com/

Hi. I'm the manager. All the computer techs are on break. I can't help you. Can you wait 45 minutes??

The hard drive is working fine. It's the Windows 8 computer that's the problem. I plugged the hard drive into a different computer, and it works fine.

Win 8 is seeing the drive as a "ghost" drive. In other words, Win 8 sees the drive, and all the files, but not the actual data. It has a list of files, but it can't read or write to the drive.

I removed the drive from the computer and rebooted, but Win 8 still sees the drive, even though it's not actually connected to the computer anymore. I went into Disk Management and removed the drive, so Disk Management in Win 8 no longer sees the drive, but Windows Explorer still sees the drive, as if it were still connected to the system.

I HATE WINDOWS 8

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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I heard Windows 8 was designed with a Tablet in mind more than a PC

That sounds like a dozy. Totally different than my problem.

Could you have logged onto your computer with a different account that does not have administrator rights? Or could your account security settings gotten changed so that it no longer has administrator rights? Probable not, but it's worth a look.

No, I'm the only one who uses this computer, so it only has one account, and everything else seems to be working okay.

How much data are you trying to transport on the external hard drive?

If it it's not a lot, there's an easier way you can do it with Google Drive - you can backup your files in Google for free with this, and download them on to any computer. Might save you the headache - I've never used Windows 8 so I can't help you on that sorry.

I'm not familiar with Google Drive, but this is a 3TB drive with only about 500 GB used right now. I just bought it a couple of months ago, and it's only used for data.

I don't really trust any kind of online or "cloud" storage, so if I can't figure this out by Saturday, I'm going to Best Buy to buy another hard drive, and I'll back up the data before trying any hard drive utilities that might format the drive when it tries to fix it.

I think it has something to do with the Partition Table, and the way Windows 8 reads larger hard drives. Apparently there's some new GPT partition table instead of the older MBR partition table, and I think Windows 8 is trying to use that because of the size of the drive, but I don't understand why the drive worked perfectly for a couple of months, and just all of a sudden stopped working today. The drive works perfectly on my old Windows XP system, so it must have been set up originally with the MBR partition table.

need a new laptop but they all come with windows 8....would rather drag myself through glass than buy that heap of crap

do Windows 8 experts exist? worst piece of crap i have ever used....and I once owned a Ford.