External Hard Drive Not Showing Up or Recognized in Windows, How to Fix It?
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.
Contents
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 .
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.
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!