I have had to reinstall my operating system and drives but now the Seagate 500 GB external is not recognized. What now?

Probably, the new operating system cannot recognize your Seagate external hard drive. You can connect the Seagate external hard drive to another computer to copy data to another device. If the problem still exists, you might need to perform data recovery. You can free download the data recovery software: http://www.icare-recovery.com/seagate-recovery/seagate-external-cannot-be-recognized.html

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It sounds as though you have one of the following problems:

1. Dirty contacts that can be cleaned with CRC electronic component cleaner;
2. A faulty drive that may have been dropped at some point in time. Your drive may have a three-year warranty and Seagate will replace it. Just go online and provide the serial number; and.
3. You may have to reinstall the drivers. The Seagate website can provide this if needed.

First i would remove and reinstall drivers for this device,next try device on another system if it works ok on another system drive ok if not drive has failed.Good luck!!!

try replacing all the leads that attach to your hard drive including electrical extensions + IDE,SATA and the ones that attach from your motherboard to hard drive
have secure connections and are not faulty or just replace them they are probably old and faulty ?
good luck

XP does not need a driver. I assume you running XP Service Pack 3. Have you tried other USB ports?
https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/portable-drivers-master

yah you must buy a Y-USB cable for your external hardisk. this is connection both ends are one is for hardisk and the other two cable is for USB slot of computer. why it two wires connection to usb because one wire is for Data and the other is for Power. If doesn't work..it might be a problem in your Operating system. i recommend to you to reinstall your Windows OS.. theres a 4 reasons why it happen appear the error... deffective USB cable..corrupted driver of USB device for seagate, virus infected of your systems..and maybe your hardive is deffective. Please rate if this is HELPFUL..thanks

Download the drivers from seagate. http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

Probably bad. Is it not being recognized by your system, no matter what you do?

Verify what Drives have been detected by your Operating System by using Windows: Control Panel -> Admistrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management -> Your Hard disk(s) will be displayed with all existing partitions and any assigned drive letters.
Your external (or internal) drive must be recognized as having formatted partitions that have a drive letter assigned to each required partition.
Hope it helps: let me know how you go!

Here is an extedend FAQ for segate disks, on how to backup files on different operating systems:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=204731