[SOLVED] – External Hard Drive Not Showing Up On a Computer

External drives can be easily connected to your system to help you transfer or backup files. However, there are times when you connect your external hard drive to your system, but it’s nowhere to be found in the file explorer.  

An external hard drive may not be detected for several reasons, including missing drive letters, corruption, or bad sectors on the drive. The issue may affect not just old, but newly purchased hard drives and prevent one from accessing their data on the drive. Fortunately, the problem can be solved with the best workarounds shared here. Understanding the underlying causes can also help you learn more about the issue and solutions to overcome it.

Reasons Behind External Hard Drive Not Showing Up on Computer

Numerous reasons tend to make external hard drives undetectable by a computer, such as:

• The unexpected system shut down due to a sudden power surge while the external hard drive was still in use.
• Physical damage due to mishandling or dropping the external hard drive
• Virus/malware infection
• Prolonged or excessive usage of hard drive
• External hard drive nearing the end of its lifecycle
• Bad sectors
• Outdated/corrupted drivers
• Unsupported file system
• Insufficient power supply
• Drive appearing RAW/Unallocated in Disk Management

Methods to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing

Now that you know the causes behind external hard drives not getting recognized by your system, try solving this issue using the methods discussed here. Before moving on to the methods, let’s try a couple of quick fixes:

Quick fixes:

Method 1: Check the USB cable and drive connectivity

Try to connect the external hard drive to the same system using a different SATA to USB cable to plug in the external drive and see if it appears. If it doesn’t appear, try to use a different USB cable to connect the external hard drive. Your hard drive might be loosely connected to the motherboard and thus not getting detected by the system.

Method 2: Check USB Port

Even after changing the SATA to USB cable, the hard drive is not detected on the computer. Try connecting the external hard drive to another USB port on your computer. If it works, then it was probably a dead USB port issue. If you use a USB hub, connect the drive directly to the computer instead, as some USB hubs don’t provide sufficient power to the external drive to function properly.

Advanced Methods:

If the quick methods don’t help and the drive fails to appear in Disk Management, the drive itself may be faulty. Let’s try some advanced methods to fix the issues with the hard drive, thus solving the External Hard Not Showing Up problem.

Method 3: Check for the External Hard Drive in the BIOS

Looking into BIOS can help determine whether the computer detects the connected external hard drive. Carefully follow the steps:

• Restart your computer and continuously press the designated BIOS key to enter the BIOS. The key is usually displayed on the screen. You can also try pressing ESC, DEL, F2, or F8.
• Once inside the BIOS, navigate to the Boot tab.
• Locate the boot drive and see if the external hard drive shows up.
• If it is displayed, then exit the BIOS and reboot your computer.

If your external hard drive is not showing up in the BIOS, it could be due to a faulty cable or loose connection. This could also happen if your external hard drive is uninitialized or unallocated. For this, move to the next solution.

Method 4: Initialize and Assign a Letter to the External Hard Drive

If you’ve purchased a new external HDD, it might not be listed in the file explorer or computer and needs to be initialized. You also need to assign a letter to the external hard drive so that the Logical Disk Manager can access it and show it in the File Explorer. To initialize a drive –

• Press WINDOWS + R, type diskmgmt. msc in the box, and click OK.

• Locate your external hard drive in Disk Management. It should be visible as an ”Unknown” drive with the ”Not initialized” tag.
• Right-click on it and select ”Initialize Disk.”

• You will see a pop-up window. In this window, select the partition style you want for the drive and click OK. The external hard drive is now initialized.

Assign a Drive letter –

Since the drive is still unallocated and doesn’t have a drive letter or file system, it will not appear in the File Explorer. Here’s what to do now –

• In Disk Management, locate the unallocated external hard drive and right-click on it.
• Click on New Simple Volume.
• You will see the New Simple Volume wizard. Click Next.
• The following window will ask you to specify the volume size. Enter the value and click Next.

• Choose a drive letter from the drop-down in the next window and click Next.

• In the Format Partition window, select the ”Format this volume with the following settings’ option and choose the File System, Allocation unit size, and Volume label.
• Choose the Perform a quick format option and click on Next.

• On the final window, click on Finish to format the drive and assign a letter to it.

Method 5: Update Storage Controller Drivers

If your external hard drive is not showing up in the file explorer but is visible in the Disk Management utility, it could be due to outdated or corrupt storage controller drivers. Try to update the storage controller drivers using the following steps and see if the issue gets fixed.

• Press WINDOWS + X and click on Device Manager

• Locate Storage Controller and expand it.
• Right-click on the entry under it and click on Properties.

• Go to the Driver tab and click on Update Driver.
• Follow the steps as prompted by the wizard.
• Restart your computer.

Method 6: Run Hardware and Device Troubleshooter using CMD

This is a typical situation where the external hard drive connected does not show in either Disk Management or File Explorer. In such a situation, you can troubleshoot device-related issues by running the hardware and device troubleshooter via CMD. To do this –

• Press WINDOWS + R and type cmd. Press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to open it with administrator privileges.

• Type the following command – msdt.exe –id DeviceDiagnostic and press Enter.

• It will open the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.
• Click on Next.

• Let the wizard detect the issues. If it displays any problems, click on them individually and follow the steps as prompted to troubleshoot them. Restart your computer.

Recover Data from RAW/ Unallocated/ External Hard Drive

A severely corrupted or bad sectored hard drive may not appear in the File Explorer. However, when you access the Disk Management utility, it may appear as ‘RAW’ or ‘Unallocated’. If so, fix it by formatting it with the NT file system and drive letter to make it accessible. However, formatting the drive will result in data loss.

But don’t worry! You can always rely on Stellar Data Recovery Professional, a powerful yet easy-to-use DIY data recovery software that extracts all types of data types, including documents, files, photos, and more. This DIY software efficiently recovers the data from deleted, formatted, or corrupted hard drive partitions. The software scans the affected hard drive and lists the scan results for you to preview first and then proceed with recovery.

Final Words:

Whether you face external hard drive detection issues with a new or old hard drive, you can fix it using the methods discussed in this blog. However, remember that if the hard drive is physically damaged or severely corrupted, it may not be detected at all. In those circumstances, you’ll not be able to regain access to your hard drive data even after using professional data recovery software. It is recommended to take the physically damaged hard drive to data recovery service providers to restore your lost data.

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About The Author

Jyoti Prakash

Jyoti Prakash is a Senior Manager at Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd., having over 15+ years of experience with a background in information technology. A tech enthusiast and expert, he specializes in data recovery, & file repair. He has participated for numerous communities, including Microsoft, SpiceWorks etc. He also provide training on Windows, Microsoft Office, Online Marketing, & social media.