External Hard Drive Not Showing Up, How to Recover Files?
Sometimes, external hard drives do not show up while connecting and thus making the data inaccessible. Here are the ways to 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.
Steps to Locate Not Showing External Hard Drive in Windows 10, 8, 7
- Open ‘Disk Management’.
- In the disk management window, a list of all the connected external drives and the existing ones along with their complete details will be visible. Here, you will be able to determine the drive you’re trying to access by its size and format type.
- Now, right-click on the drive, select ‘Change Drive Letter and Paths’ option and then click on the Change button.
- Select a drive letter from the available alphabets to rename it. Make sure the selected drive letter is not already in use.
- A warning dialogue prompted and asked you to change the drive letter. Click Yes.
- Now, you will be able to see the changed the drive letter
- After the successful process, you’ll be able to see the AutoPlay screen asking what you want to do with the drive and ‘Computer’ also displays the drive that can be accessed.
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?
External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Disk Management
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:
- First, try to plug your targeted drive in another USB port on your computer. If it works then, you might have a dead USB port. In case you are using a USB hub then try to connect the drive directly to the computer instead since some USB hubs don’t provide sufficient power to the external drive for their proper functioning.
- If still, the drive doesn’t appear in Disk Management then connect it to another computer’s USB port to check whether the drive itself is bad or the computer has certain issues. Make sure you have checked whether the drive appears in the computer’s Disk Management window. If not then you are using a dead drive that needs to be replaced.
2. Update The Driver
- If the external hard drive does work on another computer then your Windows itself may be having a driver problem. You can determine it using Device Manager.
- Open Device Manager and check for devices with a yellow exclamation mark next to them. If you can find out a yellow exclamation mark, then there must be a driver problem. Right-click the device with a yellow exclamation mark and choose Properties, and go through the error message. This error message can help you resolve the issue.
- To resolve such problem, you can also run System Restore or can also use the Update Driver button to install an updated driver. To revert any changes, select the Roll Back Driver button or use Uninstall button to uninstall the driver from your system. Hopefully, this will configure your external drive correctly when you reconnect the drive.
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 and then only format the drive after successful backup.
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.
- From the main screen, ‘Select What To Recover Data’, choose the file types you want to recover and click on ‘Next’.
- Then choose the external formatted or RAW (Unrecognized) drive from the options under ‘Connected Drives’.
- Turn on the ‘Deep Scan’ toggle at the bottom and click ‘Scan.’
- During the scan, you can turn ON/OFF the file preview.
Tip: Turning file preview OFF boosts the scanning speed.
- After the scan, you’ll see that the files/folders get listed under ‘File Type’, ‘Tree View’ and ‘Deleted List.’
- Select the desired files that you want to recover from the scan result, and click on the ‘Recover’ button.
- Click ‘Browse’ and choose a save location.
- Click ‘Start Saving’ to save the recovered files at your desired location.
Final Words
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.
About The Author
Oliver Powell
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.
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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.
The Deep Scan feature of the software is really helpful when you lost all hope to recover your files. Also, Data Recovery software is much cheaper than Data Recovery services.
Hello Tim,
Thanks for contacting Stellar Data Recovery
Many Thanks for your kind words.
Thanks for sharing such a nice thought, a piece of writing is good, that’s why I have read it fully. Using infographics really makes it easy to understand.
Hello Sophia,
Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Hello, please I have hard drive not showing up issue. Yesterday it just started showing format when I have a lot of jobs in it. It is 500 gb. The drive shows as raw in disc management.
Hello Andy,
Thanks for contacting Stellar Data Recovery
Kindly confirm whether the hard drive is getting detected by our application or not. If yes, then perform the scan by using the application to recover the files. If no, then we recommend you to go for Data Recovery Services.
For more information about Data Recovery Services, you may email to our Support Team. Their email address is given below:
support[@]stellarinfo[.]com
Thank you for some other fantastic post.
Where else may anybody get that type of information in such a perfect approach of writing?
I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I am at the look for such info.
I have 320 GB external HD; the problem USB HD not recognized to PC. I already tried another computer and also check device management the icon not detect the HD. Please Help?
Hello Saba,
Are you sure you have checked the USB HD doesn’t appear on your computer device management or another computer? If not then your HD is a dead drive that needs to replace.
Thanks so much I spent three hours trying to get my computer to recognize the USB. U saved me. Your solution really works.
Hello Priya,
Thanks for sharing your feedback.
please help me, My hard drive was mistakenly formatted using the common prompt
and it did’t show any sign of it when i plugged in.When i checked in the computer management it appear but it didn’t showed up in the file explore.
please my important files was inside…..
Hello Kov,
Please follow the below steps to recover mistakenly formatted data using cmd.
We recommend to download the below-mentioned software and try to see the lost files in the preview section.
As you wish to recover the files so we recommend you to try the demo version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional from the below mentioned link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.exe
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.
I’m having the same problem as Kov, but the approach you’ve laid out doesn’t work for me. When I choose to create an image, I can only choose between my two internal hard drives (those contain no lost file at all. I bought this computer yesterday). It doesn’t register my external, wrongfully-formatted hard drive. I also tried the “Can’t Find Drive” option, but that one also shows no disks. I had about 500 GB’s worth of data on my external, so I’m extremely desperate to get it back.
My external Toshiba drive shows up in disk management, though not at the top, but at the bottom, simply called “disk 2” with almost 1000 GB’s of unallocated space. I can’t do anything to try to convert the hard disk back to whatever format it originally had until I’ve recovered the data I lost on it, but I apparently can’t recover the data I lost on it, because it’s the wrong partition table. Weirdly enough though, the format I had accidentally converted it to was GPT, but the info says that its current format is MBR. I don’t know if that means anything?
I would GREATLY appreciate a reply, as all passwords I had for EVERYTHING were on that hard disk, so I can’t do anything with this computer until I get it back somehow. Thank you for your time!
Hello Alex,
Thank you for your email.
We would like to inform you that we need to have few screenshots in order to assist you for the query. We request you to follow the email which is sent to you via our Support Team. Their email address is given below:
support[@]stellarinfo[.]com
Hello
Please I really need help. My hard drive of about 4TB just stopped working on my laptop, when it shows on my computer it prompts an error message saying not accessible and I have tried it on another laptop, and it say format before use. Please am really confused, am a movie producer and my last work is saved on this hard drive. Please help me. Thanks…
Hello Nelson,
We do understand the value of your important data.
We recommend to download the below-mentioned software and try to see the lost files in the preview section. If the files are available than you need to purchase the software to save the files.
As you wish to recover the files so we recommend you to try the demo version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional from the below mentioned link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.exe
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.
I have completed the steps above and I still cannot see my drive f. Under storage devices it does show my Drive F but as “storage device” and it says that it is working properly. I have refreshed it and I can here the drive spinning. I makes the connecting sound when plugging in the USB. I Still cannot see it under my drives. I cannot access it even though under device management it says that it is working properly. A few days ago I plugged it in for the first time and it showed up right away. I copied some files onto the drive and that was it. It’s brand new and has nothing on it except for the empty files I placed on it for future file organization. It was working just fine. 2 days later and I have been spent 2 hours trying to access it and make it show up! I tried renaming and there is nothing on it to restore. Please help.
Hello Matt,
We recommend you to try the demo version of Stellar Windows Data Recovery Professional from the below-mentioned link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.exe
After installing the software, please perform the ‘Deep Scan’ on your drive and check whether you are able to find the data or not.
If you do not find the desired results then please perform a scan with ‘Can’t Find Drive’ option to search the lost volume and to check the possibility of recovery.
Please help. I dropped my external hard drive and now it won’t show on computer. It’s showing as unknown and not initialized in disk management and as 0 bytes. I really need my data saved. I’m worried if I try and use a recovery tool it will remove my data in the process if it doesn’t work.
Hello Victoria,
We would like to know whether there is any clicking or grinding noise coming from your hard drive. If yes then your drive is physically damaged and we recommend you not to connect the drive to the system as it may get further damaged.
You can avail our data recovery services to recover the data from the physically damaged drive. Please write to support@stellarinfo.com so that our support team can assist you further.
If there is no clicking or grinding noise coming from your drive then you can download the demo version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional from the below mentioned link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.exe
After installing the software, kindly follow the below mentioned steps to perform the scan on your drive:
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 on Next.
4. On ‘Select Location’ screen, select Can’t Find Drive from Other Locations.
5. Click on ‘Scan’ button.
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 on ‘Scan’ to continue with the recovery process.
Note: If you can’t find your desired partition in the Partition Found section, you can choose Deep Scan option to perform a comprehensive scan of the selected drive for deleted or lost partition.
Hi, I don’t think it is a problem of it being named the same letter, as in disk manger there is only one showing, my C drive. It is marked as 0. The drive doesn’t show up in either of my computers, but it makes the ding sound when It is pluged in. The drive also blinks while pluged into the computer. I am unsure what to do. I have a hard time beliving that it could get confused about what number to call it when there is only one thing in my disc manager. I’m runing windows 10 on a brand new laptop if it helps.
Hello,
We believe that the drive letter of the partitions available in your 2 hard drives is same. You need to change the drive letter of your external hard drive from the disk management option.
If you wish to recover the data from this drive then we recommend you to try the demo version of Stellar Windows Data Recovery Professional from the below mentioned link:
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.exe
Hi. I need help. My PC is telling me to format my external hard drive before i can use it again but i really don’t want to loose all my backed up files
Hi Stark,
Our software is able to recover your files from formatted drive. You can use it to recover your all backed files.
Thanks
Can delete partition recovery is feasible?
Hello Donna,
Yes, why not? Please use Stellar windows data recovery – professional software to recover complete partition data.
My W.D 1TB External drive location showing a pop up message is – You Need to Format the Disk before You Can Use It..what I do .How to fix this problem and how to recover all data. Please help I have some important file document, Photo other things.
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I have really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Hello Borvest,
We feel glad that you like our post. Definitely, we are almost daily posting something innovative about data recovery and hard drives
Please don’t forgot to follow us on Twitter.
My previous WD external hard drive is often creating data loss problems. With no reliable data recovery experts/services in my city and the huge cost of data recovery fees. I decided to opt for data recovery software. After searching for many forums and blogs on various search engines. I made my mind to go with Stellar data recovery software. Marvelous software with a nice interface. Saves me and my data from data loss.
Dear Ian,
We are equally privilege that our products work for you. Please share the software among your friends and colleagues.
A few days ago my desktop running Windows suddenly stop responding and at that time the C drive had about 10 GB space free (I think it might be the problem). I restarted the PC immediately after that I couldn’t boot the PC with the same OS, I entered so many times in the BIOS but sometimes I could see the same hard drive detected but could never boot with the installed OS even in the case of BIOS detected the hard drive and whenever I tried to installed to fresh Windows it couldn’t detect the same hard drive to be installed in. I tried to connect the hard drive to many PC running Windows externally so that the driver related problem could be solved and data could be recovered with data recovery software but no software and PC could detect it not even in the Disk Management , I also took it to the local technician but he also could not see anything related to the same in Windows. I searched hundreds of websites and videos but it didn’t help me anyway. I have very important data in that so anyone could help, or if the only option will be to handover the hard drive to Stellar so I am waiting for the procedure and cost details via email.
Thanks
Hi Rahul,
Thanks for Contacting Stellar Data Recovery, one of our representative will shortly contact you through your email ID.
Regards,
Stellar Data Recovery
The presence of video on the blog really makes it live and more engaging. Please add few more.
Thanks for your feedback. We will surely add few more shortly.
I have a seagate 1TB external hard drive which is only a month old. I was able to use it yesterday and when I tried using it today it is not reading anywhere. I never un plugged it from the laptop. The light is also ot showing on the hard drive anymore. The laptoo does make a noise when I plug it into a port and I have tried another hard drive in the same port and it works. I urgently need to recover the data from the hard drive. Help please.
Hello Sylvana,
Please check on some other working PC machine. If it still unreadable. I recommend trying Stellar window data recovery software.
Once, you recovered the data, immediately contact the hard disk manufacturer for replacement.
I have scanned my USB hard rice and it’s found a lot of stuff but when I recover the items on to my laptop drive they only show the thumbnails not the photos when I open them it says can’t open or not viewable or something! How do I get to view my files again please it’s so annoying when you wait for years for your files to recover and when they do they won’t show up what do I do to see my photos again thanks
Hello Bill,
It was a high possibility that your file is corrupted. I recommend trying Stellar jpeg repair software.
Hi Expert,
I face the same issues and unallocated. I’m following the solutions you provided. But my external hard disk doesn’t allow to format as well. It will be shown “Access is Denied”. Is there any other solutions which could help up?
Thank you.
Regards,
Mr Ong
Hi Mr Ong,
You should check the ownership of your drive. For this, open My Computer. Right click on your drive and select ‘Properties’. Once the Properties windows open, Select ‘Security Tab’ and find ‘Edit’ button. Open the edit option and check the ownership of your drive.
If you don’t find the ownership, then you can add/edit the ownership.
I have connected External hard drive to my system, but it is not showing up. It is not showing up even in the Disk Management. I have tried to connect it to another system, and it was visible there. Please suggest me what I can do?
I think you must check the Device Manager after connecting your infected drive to your system. There you can see your external drive listed (maybe with a yellow exclamation mark), do a right- click on it and update it. This will help you in making your external drive visible to your system.
I am hoping that my experience can help others.
In the past, I had a damaged external usb enclosure. I gently dismantled it and pulled the HDD out. This is a standard HDD.
Plug it into a computer, now I do not think that windows could access the files. However, for those that use windows and linux, you should have no problems as linux can read a massive variety of different file systems.
For those not using linux, use ubuntu or linux mint live CD/DVD, boot from the CD/dvd, and use the file manager to locate the HDD.
IF the HDD is still working, you can access all the files, copy them to your main HDD, or USB drives, etc. Turn the computer off, take out the Live CD/dvd, disconnect the HDD that you added, and then turn your computer on. All your files are accessible either from where you saved it on your HDD, or your other USB drives.
However. If you follow this and your files are not accessible, In my experience, your drive is damaged beyond repair…. You can take it in to an expert for file recovery, in some instances, if money is no issue, they may be able to recover files.
I believe that western digital “green” drives (they have a green label on them) have the highest fail rate out of all of the HDD in the industry, so avoid Western Digital if possible.
Hi..
I have a problem with my WD my passport external hard drive.
When i plug in the device, my computer only show the drive:H but without the drive size(free space available) underneath it.
Device manager detected it well, but sometimes it appear on disk management and sometimes it not.
I can’t access the drive via computer, but i can access it well via my smart TV.
Please help advise me with the best solution as i really need to access the data in it via my computer. Thanks in advance.
Some time Back i took backup to my external HardDisk, now I need those file back from External harddisk to my PC Win 8 ..
Please Guide me how can i get those back
Hi Mohammed,
Is your data lost? If yes, then you can try the software mentioned above. Else, connect your external hard drive to your working system and transfer it using a USB cable.
I have around 500-600 doc files on my external hard drive which I prepared after many months of work. Unluckily I forgot to take backup of those files and the data in that hard drive is missing when I check on next morning. Without any second thought, I called my system engineer friend, who informed me about Stellar Data Recovery software. I tried this software and happily recovered back all my files. This software works well with my Windows 10.
My external WD hard drive was serving as a storage powerhouse for me since last 13 months. Since one week, I observe it was not working smoothly, many times the writing speed reduces to as low as 15 MB/s. After few days, I can’t able to access any data which is around 500 GB of files, folders, mails and videos. Due to the importance of data, I contacted my PC dealer for the best possible option to recover the data at lesser time. He suggested me to use Stellar Data Recovery products. On his suggestions, I had tried this software and it easily retrieves all of my data.
I have used this magical software to overcome the problem of External hard drive not showing up an issue. This software had beautifully recovered all my data by making my external hard drive visible to me. Thanks!
Hello, I have just had the problem with my external hard drive last night. I have spent 5 hours straight and have been not able to correct the problem. I have plugged the hard drive into many different ports into my computer, including the one that worked before, but it did not work. And I have checked that the ports do work with other usb devices. The hard drive shows up under devices and printers, but not This PC. I am also not able to initialize the disk in Disk Management which does not allow me to assign it a letter. It gives me a fatal device service hardware error. I have researched and I think I have to initialize the disk then assign it a letter and I think a quick format, but I am not even able to initialize it to begin with. I also think it may be a cable problem as well, but for some reason I don’t have another cable so I have to go get one. I have also tried the troubleshooters they say it’s fixed, but it still does not come up under This PC. Hopefully we can get it fixed. Thank you in advance.
Hi Sarky,
As you said you are unable to initialize the disk or assign a drive letter to it, then it might be possible that you don’t have an ownership authority for that drive. I would suggest you to check the ownership of the drive.
For this, first take the ownership of the drive via command prompt then restart your system to check whether it can solve your problem or not.
Kindly acknowledge.
I have seen various forums where this software is highly recommended. I think that I’ll use this recommended software, in case I need it. Thanks for the post.
Nice write-up!!! I am impressed with the way you have written your blog regarding the issue related to data recovery. Thanks for sharing a helpful software to recover our data and a useful blog.
I have a western digital external hard drive with backup data on it. It used to work but out of nowhere, I can no longer access it. The error is unrecognized file system. Can this be fixed ?
Hi Steven,
I advise you to go through https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/external-hard-drive-is-not-detected-recover-data/ to resolve your problem.
If you still face any issue, kindly let me know.
Thanks for asking a question.
My 2 TB WD external hard disk was not visible on my computer screen. I need to transfer few important software from my external storage medium to my personal computer. I made a search for various methods online to overcome this problem. But, lastly I take the help of third-party data recovery software which is recommended to me by my one of my colleague. He recommended me to run Stellar Window Data Recovery on my system. I immediately made my mind and try this software to recover my data. Really impressed with fast scanning process and maximum retrieval of data. Wonderful Experience.
What if the External Hard Drive doesn’t show up on the Disk Management?
Hi Walter,
I advise you to connect your external hard drive to any another working system and check whether it becomes visible there or not, or you can change the USB cable or switch the port where you were connecting your external hard drive.
If any of the above options doesn’t work for you, then I recommend you to connect your external hard drive to another system and run our software to recover your data back.
Good Luck!!!
Hi, I have connected my old laptop’s hdd to another laptop via an adapter to recover files, in the explorer I can see the other partitions but not the C drive from the old hdd.
In disc management 200 gb is shown as primary partition but no drive letter is assigned, nor I can change the drive letter or format it.
Please help.
Hi Gaurav,
I suggest you to follow the below steps to solve your query:
• Run ‘Win+R’ and type ‘cmd’ command and Enter.
• Then, type ‘diskpart’ to start.
• Type ‘List Volume’ and press Enter. (In this step, you must be aware of the volume of whom you would like to assign, change the drive letter.)
• Then, select volume n and press Enter. In this step, you have to select a volume of whom you would like to assign, change the drive letter.
• Then, if you want to assign or change the drive letter, you have to type “assign letter=R”.
By the above steps, you can manually assign your drive letter.
Kindly share your feedback. If you still have any query, feel free to ask.
Hi Jyoti Prakash,
Thanks for your quick reply.
I have used the disk part command and I am still not able to find out the missing C drive from the old HDD whereas the other 3 out of 4 partitions are seen i.e. E, F & G.
Here you can see C & D drives are of the other laptop where I have connected this HDD.
Regards,
Gaurav
Hi Gaurav,
Thanks for your appreciation.
If you are a Windows 7 user, then follow the below steps to unhide your partition:
• Go to one of the partitions which are displayed on your system.
• Then, click on the ‘Organize’ Tab and select ‘Folder and Search Options’.
• Select the ‘View’ tab and search for the ‘Show drive letters’ option.
• After checking this option, you’ll be able to see the missing drive letter in the Windows Explorer.
If you still face any issue, kindly let me know.
Thanks!!!
Hi, my external hard drive is unreadable, the light is blinking, but it is not showing up in the system. I checked it in the disk management, and it appears as unallocated. Can you please suggest me what I should do now? I have important data on my external hard drive which I don’t want to lose at any cost.
Hi Hamer,
It seems that your external hard drive has lost its file system and that’s why it appears as unallocated in the Disk Management. I would suggest you to use the data recovery software of Stellar and then format your hard drive for reuse. Thanks!!
WD External hard drive for Mac (Encrypted) not showing up in the Finder but seems greyed out in Mac’s Disk Utility. It’s a single partitioned disk. Is it possible to recover external hard drive on Mac running OS X Mavericks?
Hi Jennifer,
Stellar Mac Data Recovery software supports data recovery on encrypted hard drives and unmounted volumes. You can download the application and start a free scan to preview all the files tool can regain. For any assistant feel free to reply or call 877-778-6087.
Best Regards
Vishal
As a newbie, I stuck with a problem that when my external drive is neither showing up in My Computer nor in the Disk Management. Somehow, I landed on this page and saw the software mentioned in it. I immediately purchased this software to recover my data, and luckily, I am quite able to recover my data as this software has a very easy interface. Thanks for sharing the blog with us…
I am using an external drive which suddenly becomes invisible one day. It is not detected in My Computer as well as in the Disk Management and other places where it could be found. So, without wasting my time in experimenting with it, I started my search for an efficient software which can at least recover my data back and luckily, I got this software and found that this software is lucky for me as I had easily recouped my data with the help of it. Thanks for this amazing software.
The situation becomes worsen when the external drive in which you had kept and saved your data becomes invisible, i.e., it is not accessible or we can say not showing up in My Computer and other such places. It’s not so easy to ignore such problems. My experience says that the user should opt for the data recovery software at the same moment, when they are facing such situation. I had done the same. I have downloaded your software and easily recovered my data back. Thanks for the post.
Hi, I have Seagate hard drive on my system but now suddenly it stopped showing in My Computer Windows. I tried various solutions to troubleshoot the issue like updated drive by going through device manager, also bought new SATA cable and reconnected hard drive but no luck. Can you please help me to sort out the issue?
Hi, it seems that you have tried all the well-known troubleshoots to make your hard drive accessible on My Computer. I would also like to know, have you tried to change your drive letter by going through disk management? If not, then try it first. If this troubleshoot doesn’t work for you, then try data recovery software to recover your data first and then format your hard drive for reuse. Thanks!!
What can i do my hard drive is not going on
Hi Gesiena,
Can you please elaborate your query that what exactly happens with your hard drive? Is it not showing in the disk management? Kindly explain it clearly, so that I’ll give you the better solution of your problem. Thanks!!!
I have the same problem as Mr. Shubh has mentioned in the comments. So, I followed the solution suggested by Mr. Jyoti and luckily, I was now able to recover my data very easily. Thanks for sharing the perfect solution and a blog with us…
Yesterday, my external hard drive was working perfectly. But, when I used it today, I found that it is not showing up in my system. I had changed my USB cable through which I used to connect it to my system, but unfortunately, nothing happens. I had searched it even in the Disk Management, but with no luck. I had searched this problem on search engine and found this blog as the best solution. Thanks for sharing an informative blog with us…
I am a user of this amazing software… Really like its advanced features. The way it recovers the data is quite appreciable… Thanks for sharing the post with us…
When i connect my 2tb hardisk nothing shows up not auto play , nothing is disk management and i have checked in two computers nothing there , but the hardisk light appears when ever i connect it with computer plzzz help
Hello Shubh,
Try to check your hard drive in the Device Manager… There is a possibility that your hard drive becomes RAW due to which it is not displaying in the Disk Management… So, you can try our above-mentioned product (which you can easily find athttps://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery-software.php), it will help you in recovering your valuable data from your RAW hard drive.
I don’t know that how my external hard drive has crashed? It’s not showing up in the Disk Manager. I had tried Minitool for Data Recovery, but was unsuccessful. I searched a lot and reached to this blog. I tried this software and it works so amazingly that I am quite able to recover my data and that too in a very easy manner… Thanks for sharing the post with us.
My hard drive is not recognized by my system… I had checked it even in the Disk Management… I am very much scared of losing the data… Unfortunately, it happens… Then, I get to know about this software and tried it… It worked so well that I had purchased it for the future purpose also, if needed… Thanks for sharing the post with us…
When I am connecting my external hard drive to my computer, it doesn’t recognize it. I take out and again insert it, it’s not visible then also. Then, I searched it for in the disk management, but found nothing. Please suggest what I can do now?
I have the exact same issue as Jose Brown and am anxious to hear your reply. I am quite concerned as I seem to have exhausted all other options regarding this external hard drive which is completely full with data.
Hello Guys,
Well, there may be chances that a particular USB port on to which you are connecting, is not working well. So, you may check it on to the other USB port of the same system. If it works, then it means you have a dead USB port.
If the drive is not showing in the Disk Management, then try to connect it within another’s computer USB port. You have to be sure that your drive should appear in the Disk Management, if it doesn’t appear, it means you have a dead hard drive and you need to replace it.
If nothing works for you, then try our above-mentioned software which will help you in resolving your issue.
I’m having the same problem. My 750 GB external is somewhat registering with my computer – it shows up in device manager with the correct name. Device manager says it’s working perfectly and that the drivers are all up to date. It will not show up in Disk Manager or My Computer though.
I have downloaded the free version of Stellar Pheonix, because all I’m really worried about is a single word document, but although it sees an unknown partition of 691.8GB, it’s not scanning? It just sits there at 0. It’s been running for 3 days. The partition size is different from the size of the external (750 GB), and I’m worried that it’s not finding the portion that actually has data on it. Is there anything I can do?
As you said, that you easily see an unknown partition of 691.8 GB, it means that the partition has lost its file system and turned into Raw State. Our software provides an option of Raw Recovery for this kind of situation. So , I recommend you to choose the raw data recovery option from the right panel of the Software interface which you have downloaded. I believe, it will quickly start the scanning process and help you in successfully recovering your lost document.
Please acknowledge after implementing on the above said. Good Luck!!!
my internal hard drive have recently stopped working.
and when i connected it to the another hard drive then it was not showing me the volume .
i mean to say it was detecting the hard drive but it is not showing me .
i have downloaded stellar phoenix and it was also not showing me the hard drive i have connected to the another computer i just want to recover my hard drive what should i do please help me i have some serious data in it .
Hi Sohail,
I would suggest you to connect your hard drive and go to disk management to check its status. It might be possible that your hard drive has no file system or converted into raw format.
To solve this issue, you can use check disk command “[chkdsk H (drive name): /F (type f to fix error)]”. It will help you to fix the issue.
For second query, have you used ‘search lost volume’ option. It will detect your drive after this you can recover your important data from that drive. If you have any further query then please let us know!
Hi – i am connecting a external hard disk to my computer, it shows up the drive and its content but when i try to access the users folder and go to a specific user, no data is shown but it really has lots of data. The user data is password protected as this external hard disk one of my laptop’s. please reply if you have any solution to this.
hello i resetted my computer after getting a virus i now cant access my external hardddrive its a wd elements 1funny thing i can plug it into my tv and see stuf on hard dtive only on computr i cant its saying f:/ access access is denied wat i do i have nearly 800gig of movies
Hi, yes you were right the issue was with the drive permission setting, now I have edit the setting and after changing the access permission I am able to access my hard drive. Thanks!!
Hi, I am facing problem with my external hard drive, it is visible in my computer but when I tried to open it shows access is denied. Now I don’t understand what to do? Please help me!!
Hi Earic,
Sometimes it happens when hard drive automatically change its permission setting so I would advise you to check your hard drive security settings. You can follow below steps to make your hard drive accessible:
1. Just do right click on the inaccessible drive then click on properties
2. After clicking on properties go to security tab and then click on advanced
3. After this you will see group or user names category just click on edit button to change the permission.
Note: Assuming you are using Windows 7 OS.
Hope it will help you!!
I like the way you have describe about the hard drive corruption and solution. The steps you have mentioned to show up external hard drive in system helps me a lot to view my hidden external hard drive in Windows system.
Thanks for such informative article – short, simple and very relevant, just the way I love it
Nice Article, the steps you have mentioned to view and recover external hard drive is very helpful.
Hi, I have installed Stellar data recovery software and recovered data from my damage external hard drive. Many thanks!!!
My system has stopped detecting 500 GB external hard drive which is full of some important project files and many backup files. Though, I can see the green light blinking continuously but not able to see the drive on my system. Please suggest any simple and swift way to resolve my issue.
I am facing exactly the same problem. My external hard drive is not showing up in my computer. The drive is on and I can hear sound but I am unable to see it. How can I backup the data from my external drive?
Hi Nick
As mentioned in the article, sometime Windows named the drive to a letter that is already in use. Just open disk management to view external hard drive. If drive is not found in disk management then try our data recovery software to search lost partition.
Good Luck!!!
even i am having this problem….. were you able to fix? if yes, how?
Hi Anu,
Have you tried the above solutions?
Kindly acknowledge.