I purchased the external hard drive in May of 2019. I put my movies onto it and have been using it plugged into the back of my computer. I wanted to add a couple of movies so i plugged it into the same windows 10 pc i used previously and guess what? “Drive not accessible, access is denied.”
I am pretty frustrated. I plugged the drive back into my tv and it works fine. I play videos and i can scroll through the folders. I checked in windows 10 and it has a healthy partition and the drive letter is identifiable. I changed the drive letter (like that would do anything really). I tried to change permissions and it wont let me. I have never had luck with an external hard drive and I think third times a charm. If anyone can help me that would be appreciated.
Drive in question.
WD 4TB My Passport Portable Hard Drive with password protection and auto backup software Orange (WDBYFT0040BOR-WESN)
This morning I have identified it is a healthy partition. The drive continues to not work on my PC because it is not accessible. The drive works perfectly fine plugged into my smart TV. I can change the drive letter. No need to adjust permissions because permissions are already granted to my desktop computer. What do i do next? Doesn’t Western Digital have any customer service on here?
I have now plugged it into my chromebook of all things. Works fine. I can access all the files and open them no problem. Does Western Digital help anyone with this stuff? I have updated windows 10 to make sure it has all the updates. My windows 10 PC identifies the drive letter, healthy partition, and I am the owner of it. Continues to say ‘access is denied’. Works on my smart TV and chromebook of all things. I plug it into Windows 10 and bam ‘accessed is denied’ I also deleted the driver from the device manager,tried to update the driver, and also delete the driver again etc. I have drived every USB port in my desktop. You alive Western Digital?
Even though you’ve confirmed that the partition is healthy and the drive letter is identifiable, the problem likely stems from Windows not recognizing your access rights to the drive. The fact that you’ve tried changing permissions without success indicates that the access settings may be locked or require administrative privileges. The phrase external hard drive access denied often points to these types of permission issues in Windows https://www.hаndyrecovery.com/external-hard-drive-access-denied/. To resolve this, you might try connecting the drive again, right-clicking on it in File Explorer, and selecting “Properties,” then navigating to the “Security” tab to take ownership of the drive. If that doesn’t work, you may also consider using disk management tools to check for errors or recover data before attempting any reformatting.
