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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
Download Link
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:
Download Link
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.