Resolved Cannot write to external hard drive

I was attempting to do a backup to a USB connected external hard drive using Retrospect software. While it was writing to the disk, I inadvertently shut off power to the external hard drive. When I tried to repeat the backup, I received this message from within the software:

"This use is in disk by another member, choose another disk or location [OK] "

In the process of fixing this, so far I have tried powering down everything and rebooting the computer with the drive disconnected. I also ran CHKDSK (drive: ) /f and when that didn't work, CHKDSK (drive: ) /r on that drive. That didn't work either. The drive has available space.

I can read the hard drive. When everything above didn't work, I simply tried to copy two files to the disk without using the backup software. I received this message from Windows:

"Error Copy Access is Denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected and that the file is not currently in use. "

Obviously the disk got messed up or confused when I turned off the power. I've searched the site here for some answers, but most of the suggestions are to do what I've already done.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

Since you can run chkdsk & read from the drive your computer can see it correctly.

When your run chkdsk /f on the drive, does it completes successfully or gives an error ?

 

When I ran chkdsk /f, it was taking a long time, so I went to bed. When I came back, it had completed the task, and closed the window.

 

If your seagate is the external drive run seatools, if not select the relevant diagnostic software from below...

ExcelStore

Fujitsu

Hitachi/IBM

Samsung

Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum

Toshiba

Western Digital

Post back with results.

 

I just tried something else. I went to my administrator account, My Computer, went to properties on the drive, and noticed that my user names were not there on the security tab. I added them and gave them full permissions for that drive.

This allowed me to write files to the external drive. However, the backup software is still not working. I'm going to reboot and see if that helps.

 

Better reinstall the backup software after uninstalling it.

 

Solution

After I was able to get the drive to accept a written file by restoring the security rights of the users, I suspected that the remaining problem was in the Retrospect software itself.

The software writes a catalog file of data that it has backed up, and had an option to rebuild the catalog. I did that, and it fixed the problem. The portable hard drive is working again. The catalog file must log the current user when it opens, and when the power was shut off, it must not have cleared that, which was why the software thought that the drive was not released for doing the backup.

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

To be fair, according to your findings then yes the back up software is at fault but the primary cause is shutting down power midway through a backup. Who's fault is that

Thanks for letting us know you resolved the issue though