[SOLVED] – External Hard Drive Not Showing Up On a Computer
Summary: ‘External hard drive not showing up’ error is generally caused due to a missing drive letter, outdated drivers and more. This blog will guide you on how to fix this error by applying different DIY methods, such as adding a drive letter to the external drive or initializing the hard drive. If there’s no time for troubleshooting and you need to recover important data from the undetectable external drive, download professional data recovery software for a faster recovery.
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My computer isn’t detecting my external hard drive. There’s a lot of important data on the drive. Can anyone tell me what the problem is and how I can get a hold of my files?
This is a common query posted by many users on various technical forums, where they are trying to figure out why the external hard drive is not showing up on their computer after connecting.
This can be an annoying situation, especially when you’re on the clock and need to access critical data immediately. Here, you need to understand that an external hard drive is just another storage device that is prone to damage and corruption.
So, instead of worrying, you should dig deep and start applying various workarounds available to help you recover data from an undetectable storage drive.
Why is my External Hard Drive not Showing Up on the Computer?
There are numerous reasons that tend to make external hard drives undetectable by a computer. It could be anything from the following –
- A sudden power surge that caused an unexpected system shutdown while the external hard drive was in use.
- Mishandling or dropping the external hard drive causing physical damage.
- Abrupt or improper system shutdown while the external hard drive is connected
- Virus/malware infection
- Prolonged or excessive use for extended durations
- External hard drive nearing the end of its lifecycle
- Bad sectors
- Outdated/corrupted drivers
- Unsupported file system
- Insufficient power supply
- Drive corruption causing the drive to appear as a RAW in Disk Management.
When an external hard drive is not recognized by your system, you will neither see it anywhere on your computer nor see any notification indicating a connected device.
Alternatively, you may also see a message, “You need to Format disk Drive E: before you can use it. Do you want to format it now?” flash on the screen upon connecting the external hard drive.
Caution: If you see this message, don’t click the ‘Format disk’ button. This will wipe all the data on the drive, and you will lose all your data.
How to Fix the External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Your PC?
Now that you know why your external hard drive is not showing up, let’s try to fix this issue using the methods explained ahead.
Pre activity –
Before moving on to the methods, try plugging the external hard drive into another USB port or another computer to see if there’s a problem with the port or the drive itself.
Also, try to change the cable and then connect. Sometimes, the cable is damaged, which results in the hard drive not showing up on your PC. Once you are done doing all checks, start employing the methods to fix the ‘external hard drive isn’t detected’ error –
Method 1: Check for the External Hard Drive in the BIOS
Looking into BIOS is a great way to see if the connected external hard drive is being detected by the computer or not. Carefully follow the steps –
- Restart your computer and continuously press the designated BIOS key to enter BIOS. Usually, the key is displayed on the screen. Or you can try pressing ESC, DEL, F2, or F8.
- Once inside the BIOS, navigate to the Boot tab.
- Locate the boot drive and see if the external hard drive is showing up.
- If it is displayed, then exit the BIOS and reboot your computer.
If your external hard drive is not showing up in the BIOS, it could be due to a faulty cable or loose connection. This could also happen if your external hard drive is uninitialized or unallocated. For this, move to the next solution.
Method 2: Initialize and Assign a Letter to the External Hard Drive
If you have recently purchased an external HDD and is not initialized, this could be the reason behind the external hdd not getting listed in the file explorer or computer. You will first need to initialize and assign a letter to the external hard drive so that the Logical Disk Manager can access it and show it in the File Explorer. To do so –
- Press WINDOWS + R, type diskmgmt.msc in the box and click OK.
- In Disk Management, locate your external hard drive. It should be visible as an ‘Unknown’ drive with the ‘Not initialized’ tag.
- Right-click on it and select ‘Initialize Disk.’
- You will see a pop-up window. Here, select the partition style you want for the drive and click OK.
The external hard drive is now initialized. Because it is still unallocated and doesn’t have a drive letter, it will not show up in the File Explorer. Here’s what to do now –
- In Disk Management, locate the unallocated external hard drive and right-click on it.
- Click on New Simple Volume.
- You will see the New Simple Volume wizard. Click Next.
- In the next window, it will ask you to specify the volume size. Enter the value and click Next.
- In the next window, choose a drive letter from the drop-down and click Next.
- In the Format Partition window, select the ‘Format this volume with the following settings’ option and then choose the File System, allocation unit size, and Volume label.
- Choose the Perform a quick format option and click on Next.
- On the final window, click on Finish to format the drive and assign a letter to it.
Method 3: Update Storage Controller Drivers
If your external hard drive is not showing up in the file explorer but is being detected by the computer, it could be due to outdated or corrupt storage controller drivers. Follow the steps mentioned here –
- Press WINDOWS + X and click on Device Manager.
- Locate Storage Controller and expand it.
- Right-click on the entry under it and click on Properties.
- Go to the Driver tab and click on Update Driver.
- Follow the steps as prompted by the wizard.
- Restart your computer.
Method 4: Run Hardware and Device Troubleshooter using CMD
This is a typical situation where the connected external hard drive does not show in either the disk management or the File Explorer. In such a situation, you can troubleshoot any device-related issues by running the hardware and device troubleshooter via CMD. To do this –
- Press WINDOWS + R and type cmd. Press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to open it with administrator privileges.
- Type the following command – msdt.exe –id DeviceDiagnostic and press Enter.
- It will open the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.
- Click on Next.
- Let the wizard detect the issues. If it displays any issues, click on them one by one and follow the steps as prompted to troubleshoot them.
- Restart your computer.
Note – Also, expand the ‘Disk Drives’ entry and update the drivers of your storage drive.
How to Recover Data from an External Hard Drive that is not Showing Up?
External drive not showing up on a computer can worry anyone as they are mostly used for creating backups of important files and data.
If you are currently in such a situation, worry not as you can recover the lost data from an unrecognized (RAW) drive or volume using a professional data recovery software like Stellar Data Recovery Professional.
It is an easy-to-use software that is light on storage and effective in almost every data loss scenario. Here is a short video to show you the steps involved in performing data recovery.
Another great thing about this software is its built-in Drive Monitor utility. This little addition helps in checking the health and other vitals of any storage drive and informs the user if there is any issue with the drive.
Conclusion
We store our important files and data on external hard drives to maintain a backup of our data and to prepare ourselves for any unexpected data losses. However, it is so frustrating to see our storage drive not getting detected by the computer. If your external hard drive is not showing up on the PC, you can follow the given methods discussed above and access it. Let us know which method helped you fix this issue.
Hello Jyoti,
My hard drive is not appearing in “This PC” I don’t know what should I do now. Can you please tell me how I can make my hard drive visible in my system? Thanks in advance.
Hello Bruce,
It’s probably possible that your hard drive has lost its drive letter and you need to assign a drive letter to your hard drive. To assign it, go to disk management and do right click on the drive and then click on change drive letter to assign it.
Omg plz help me…
About more than an hour ago, i was watching a movie in my toshiba 500gb hardisk but then my sister accidentally hit the hardisk. Aftet that the hardisk CANT BE DETECTED. I TRIED ON ANOTHER LAPTOP BUT STILL DOESNT SHOW ANYTHING OF ITS EXISTENCE. Plzzzzz help me….im gonna cry…..theres a lot of stuff in the hardisk…
The hardisk name is EzznoulEzzat (E:\) byt then it become LOCAL DISK (E:\) ! Ok im crying right now…. plzzzzz help me
Hello Azzroul,
Just give few attempts to the following:
Try to search for your hard drive in disk management.
For this,
You have to do the right-click on My Computer.
Choose Manage
Then, find Disk Management
There, you can search for your external hard drive under the list.
Do the right click on it and change the drive letter.
If you find it, then it’s good, else you can download our software mentioned above in the blog to recover your data back.
How to recover my hard drive that is accidentally fall down on the floor then i try to put agian in our tv was not it detect why.. Pls help me..
Hello Roy,
Sorry to hear about your hard drive.
Please try the demo version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional from the below-mentioned link:
Download Link
After installing the software, please follow the below-mentioned steps to create an image of the drive as your drive contains bad sectors:
1. Run Stellar Windows Data Recovery software.
2. From Select What to Recover screen, select the type of data i.e. Everything, Documents, Folders & Emails or Multimedia Files, you want to recover. Click on Next.
3. On Select Location screen, select Recover from Disk Images from Other Locations and click on Scan button.
4. Now select Create Image option and click Next.
5. From Create Image screen, select the drive or partition for which you wish to create an image.
6. To create an image of the entire drive or partition click on Start Imaging.
7. In ‘Create Media Image to Save’ dialog box, locate the destination where image file should be saved. In the File Name text box, type name. Click on Save.
8. Click on Scan to start the recovery process.
If still you can’t able to recover your data, then your hard drive needs to be diagnosed by the data recovery service experts.
Hello Sir,
I had transfer all my data to a new hard drive. But when I connect it with my computer, it shows nothing. Have I lost my data or something else has happen? Please suggest.
Hello Jyoti,
I need your help. I have an external hard drive which is not detecting in my laptop. However, it is working fine on my friend’s laptop but when I connect it to my Acer laptop it doesn’t appear in File Explorer. Can you please tell me why it is not recognized in my laptop?
Hi Rick Baker,
From the information you have provided, it seems that your external hard drive is not damaged and is in good condition. I believe that your external hard drive name is similar to your existing drive and that’s why it is not appearing in your laptop. I would like to recommend you to go to the disk management and change the drive letter of your external hard drive and then see if it start appearing into the File Explorer. Thanks!!
Hi Jyoti,
I am very much in need of a data recovery software which easily recovers my data. As recommended by you, I had downloaded ‘Stellar Windows Data Recovery Pro’ and followed all the steps mentioned in your post. Luckily, I was able to turn out my data back…Thanks for your blog dear…
Hi Jyoti, my hard drive was not working properly and due to which I had lost almost all of my important data. After searching a lot, I reached to your blog and found the tips and a useful software available for data recovery. I had used the ‘Stellar Windows Data Recovery Pro’ and no doubt it’s like a big thing comes in small packages. It really works great and it’s astounding features help me in recovering my data in a very easy manner. Thanks for the useful post and the amazing product…
Hi Mr Jyoti
In my 500 GB HDD, one person examined it and says the Head of the Disk is not working and he will change the Head and there is a chance that it might get detected. Is it possible? My other question is after changing the Head, what are the chances that the platter is affected by extra scratches thereby make it unusable. Will it get more damaged?
Hi Makhija,
I have few queries for you, kindly answer them so that I can easily provide you the solution of your problem:
1) Since how long your hard drive is not detected?
2) Have you tried to insert your hard drive in different system?
3) What comes on screen before it stopped responding?
After changing the head of the hard drive, it might be possible that it will start detecting by the system. But there are also the chances of data loss.
Thanks
Hi, I have updated Windows 10 before the New Year, all is working smoothly but today morning when I tried to view movie via CD it wasn’t working, I cannot rip the CD. I am unable to identify the reason why this is happening. Can you please help me in this?
Hi Joe,
I am happy to provide to you the answer of your queries. Can you please answer the following question?
Have you tried to insert your CD into another laptop or computer?
Are you getting any error message?
Thanks
HI I am using 2 TB external hard drive to back up my data but all of sudden it stops working. I tried chkdsk command to make drive accessible and it worked I was able to access my data. But yesterday when I insert into my laptop it wasn’t working. Again I tried chkdsk command but it didn’t help me. Is there any other solution which can help me to access my data.
Hi George,
As chkdsk is not working, you can try ‘test disk tool’ to make your drive data accessible. If problem still persist then try our Stellar Winodws Data Recovery – Free edition software to make your drive accessible.
Hope it will be helpful for you!!
Hi, please help me I am in problem. Yesterday suddenly my 500GB Toshiba external hard drive started making noise; I took it lightly and used the drive to save my important files. But now today when I insert that hard drive into my laptop it is not appearing. Now I don’t understand why this is happening and how can I recover my data? Any suggestion would be appreciated.
Hi Hamer,
When hard drive starts making noise then it means that drive file system or read/write head is getting damage and the drive is about to die. In such situation you should to take backup drive data and format it. Now to make your drive visible just go to control penal and click on device manager, then click on view and select show hidden files. Hope it will help you!!
If after using above method, you don’t find drive then I would suggest you to download hard drive recovery software, it will help you to search and detect lost drive as well as helps you to recover your lost data.