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Summary: Sometimes, external hard drives do not show up while connecting and thus making the data inaccessible. Here are the ways to resolve external hard drive not showing up issue and steps to recover data from an inaccessible drive using the most trusted Stellar Data Recovery software.
At times, when you plug in an external drive into your system it does not show up or AutoPlay in Windows. Here, you will be able, to take a look at ways to resolve external hard drive not showing up issue in Windows and make it accessible for use.
The problem starts when you plug in an external USB or hard drive to your system, and nothing happens. At times, you might hear the USB connection sound as well, but still, AutoPlay doesn’t run. When you check the drive in ‘Computer’, you don’t see any external drive there. Usually, external hard drive not showing up problem occurs when Windows names the drive to a letter that is already in use.
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Following these steps will most probably resolve the external hard drive not showing up in Windows. But what if the drive or new hard drive is not showing in the Disk Management as well?
If Windows doesn’t list your external drive in the Disk Management, then possibly there could be a problem with USB port, a driver problem with Windows or you are using a dead drive.
1. Check USB Port:
2. Update The Driver
3. Partitioning And Formatting the Drive
At times unpartitioned drive is also a reason for an invisible or an inaccessible external drive. When the drive is full of “unallocated space,” then you need to create a new partition on it to show its visibility. Windows Disk Management tool can fix this partition and file system issue.
Right-click inside the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume and follow the wizard to create a new partition.
In case the drive is partitioned, but still, you can’t access the drive from another device, then probably it is not formatted as NTFS. At times many devices can’t read the Windows NTFS file system. To fix this problem format the drive with the FAT32 file system.
Note: This process will remove all the stored files on your external drive, therefore first try to copy important files to another drive. In case you are unable to access the data, recover it with an efficient partition recovery software .
4. Use Professional Recovery Software
Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows is a highly recommended tool that is capable enough to restore inaccessible files from the external hard drive. Its simple and intuitive interface doesn’t require any technical know-how to run it properly. Due to its highly positive reviews many windows users use this utility to recover data from their inaccessible external drive. You can download the software by clicking on below button.
Tip: Turning file preview OFF boosts the scanning speed.
Overall, whenever you face issues with your external drives, it is always better to go with a reliable data recovery software instead of trying different methods to make it accessible as it might end up with a data loss situation.
Oliver Powell is a Data Recovery Expert at Stellar®. He is a passionate technology blogger & content creator, He explores new applications and has deep understanding of data recovery. He has experience in Windows & Mac data recovery domain.
Dear
How to recover data from hard disk. My laptop got crashed. I would like to recover all my documents from my hard disk.
How i will recover my files.
Hello,
My name is Rohit. Recently I encountered an issue with my computer due to which all the data in the D and E drive got deleted. I had many important documents which I want to retrieve. So is there any chance that the Stellar software could help me with that. Can I retrieve already erased files from my system using this software?
Any kind of help would be really appreciated.
Thanks
Hi Rohit,
You can recover your all data with the help of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows. The DIY professional Windows data recovery software gets back all your valuable documents, emails, photos, videos, and audio files, quickly and easily. Thanks
The infographic way of explanation is really interesting.
Thanks for reading the infographics.
i see the external HDD in the disk management but when i right click the only option i get is delete volume and also NTFS file is also not showing against the particular disk,pls help
Hello Sitanshu,
Kindly make sure that the account by which you are logged in must have full admin rights or login via administrator account and you will be able to see all other option highlighted.
Hello,
I can see my hdd icons in My Computer, but couldn’t be able to open it or load it. How can I fix this issue?
Connected my internal hdd through an hdd enclosure with my PC.
Appreciate your valuable thoughts on this matter!
Hello Chinthu,
As per your query we recommend you to use our demo version of Stellar Windows Data Recovery- Pro software. You can download it from the below link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional.exe
Kindly perform Can’t Find drive scan. Below are the steps which you need to follow:
1. Run Stellar Windows Data Recovery.
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.
3. Click Next.
4. On Select Location screen, select Can’t Find Drive from Other Locations.
5. Click Scan.
6. In the Select Drive section, all the hard drives connected to the system are listed with their details. From this section, choose a hard drive you want to scan for lost partitions and click Search. A scan for lost or deleted partitions will be performed in the selected disk or drive.
7. Any ‘lost partition’ detected, will be listed in the Partition Found section.
8. From the list of partitions found, select any desired partition and click Scan to continue with the recovery process.
The free download is used to scan the drive and it will list all the data which can be recoverable by using the purchased version. In order to recover them, you need to purchase it.
Please reply to us for any further assistance.
Great info. It helped in our research. We are working on a similar article, would you like to take a look when it’s published? Thanks.
Yes, Please share.