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 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
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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.