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

Written By Jyoti Prakash
Approved By Rohit Arora
Updated on 16 Jul, 2024
Min Reading 6 Min
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Summary: Your external hard drive may not be detected on computer for many reasons, such as no drive letter assigned, outdated disk driver, or bad sectors on the drive. Since the external hard drive and its data becomes inaccessible in this case, keep a professional data recovery software handy to recover your files from the drive.

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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Outdated/corrupted drivers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.”

select the partition style and initialize the disk to recover data from an external hard drive that is not detected

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.

enter the volume of the hard drive which is not showing up

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.

select the file system and format the initialized hard drive and recover data from the hard drive which was not showing up

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.

update hard drive drivers of the hard drive that is not showing up to fix the issue and recover data from it.

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.

open command prompt with administrator rights

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

type the command and run it to open hardware troubleshooter

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

run the hardware troubleshooter to fix the hard drive that is not showing up on the computer and recover data from it

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.

Note: Also, expand the ”Disk Drives’ entry and update the drivers of your storage drive.

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

Problem solver and Data recovery specialist. Usually share informative articles on data recovery, database corruption and ways to recover lost data.

144 comments

Maria Green says:

January 10, 2017 at 3:52 am

This is the major issue faced by many tech users. But, I had easily resolved it using the software mentioned above. Thanks Stellar!

Reply
Sarah Campbell says:

January 9, 2017 at 6:53 am

The similar thing happened to me as it happens with Mr Patrick. But, I had successfully made this task positive by following the instructions given by you. Thanks for sharing the post with us and for the fantastic solution too.

Reply
Mark Robinson says:

December 29, 2016 at 10:33 am

My Seagate external hard drive was once not detected with my Windows even after doing basic troubleshooting it was not detected. Since the importance of data is crucial, I immediately searched for a best possible solution which I can perform at that point in time. On many forums and blogs, I get to know about Stellar products, so, I immediately made my decision to go for it. After using this software, I got all my important data back in very lesser time. Thanks, Stellar!!!

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Marry Young says:

December 21, 2016 at 6:57 am

External hard drives are considered as the best device of data backups. Using this portable device data can be moved anywhere globally. But even this data can be lost, reasons may be many, its recovery is most important for us. Any method which retrieves our complete data is best for us. Data Recovery software is the best solution for it, with the simple feature of downloading and installing software at your home, your data can be recovered without any pain. Interface are designed in such a manner that even a non-technical person can easily perform the task.

Reply
Arijit Biswas says:

December 20, 2016 at 7:48 pm

I am in a great trouble and helping your suggestion. I have a 1 TB external hard disk almost new as it’s never formatted. Unfortunately One of my DVR (CCTV) internal hard disk has been crashed and i have came up with a idea that it might save the dvr footage in the external hard disk s I connect the external drive to the DVR usb. I tried the option usb update and it’s taking long time. So I out from usb after just 15-20 min. After that I am totally mad when connect and see name of the drive (Fφ¢æ¿├Y1) all data unreadable folder name changes to ñö]╩s╛.Σ^ , #┤j{╘φ≈.┼╒- »8Γù)fk└.!≈ etc.etc.

I manually delete nothing on that. Can u plz help me. Is there any chances to recover data?

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  December 22, 2016 at 6:21 am
  
  Hello Arijit,
  
  First of all, I would suggest you to check your external hard drive status in disk management. It might be possible that the drive has lost file system and that’s why it is showing encrypted drive name.
  
  Now, coming to your next question, is data recovery possible or not? The answer is “Yes”. You can download the above recommended professional data recovery software to recover your data from the unallocated hard drive. This software is fully efficient to recover data from RAW or Unallocated hard drive.
  
  Reply
Mark Anderson says:

December 15, 2016 at 8:17 am

This is one of the major issues which a computer or a laptop user can face. I too had faced a similar problem but has resolved this with the help of software mentioned above. Thanks for this fantastic product and a blog.

Reply
Jose Brown says:

December 14, 2016 at 11:12 am

Hi,

I have connected my external hard drive into my Windows 10 system, but the drive is not visible in the system. I believe the drive is compatible with Windows and I need to update it. Can you please tell me how can I update my external hard drive?

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  December 15, 2016 at 3:04 am
  
  Hi,
  
  To update your external hard drive, please follow the below steps:
  
  • Just insert your hard drive into the computer system
  • Go to the device manager Windows
  • Do a right click on the drive listed in the device manager, and click on update driver software.
  
  After updating the driver software, just reconnect your hard drive and check the status whether it starts appearing in the Windows or not.
  
  Thanks!!
  
  Reply
T Patrick says:

December 14, 2016 at 11:02 am

Hi, Yesterday, I was transferring my old system data to my new HP laptop. I successfully transferred all my audios and videos to the laptop. Later, I realised that some of my pictures was still left in the old system which I need to transfer. So, I reconnected my external hard drive with my system; but, it stopped detected by the system. I don’t know what happen to my external hard drive. I also noted that I didn’t eject it safely when I removed it from the system.

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  December 15, 2016 at 3:00 am
  
  Hello Mr. Patrick,
  
  First of all, I would suggest you to check your drive in the device manager. If your system is still able to read the drive, then it will be listed in device manager under disk drives. If you find your drive there, then do a right click on the drive and click on “update driver software”. After updating the driver software, reconnect your drive and check whether it starts detecting by your system or not.
  
  Reply
Lewis Chamber says:

December 2, 2016 at 8:45 am

I have an external 2TB hard disk. It was working fine till last night but, now today, when I connect it to my new Lenovo laptop, it didn’t recognized by it. I don’t know what’s wrong with my hard drive. Can you please help me to detect the issue?

Reply
1. Jyoti Prakash says:
  
  December 6, 2016 at 2:38 am
  
  Hi Lewis,
  
  It seems that the drive’s driver software is outdated and not compatible with your new laptop. I would advise you to go to the device manager and update the driver software and then reconnect your hard drive to see whether it starts detecting in the system or not.
  
  Reply
Foster Brown says:

November 30, 2016 at 3:43 am

Thanks, Stellar team for sharing possible reasons about the external hard drive which is not detecting within our machine. It was a common myth among the people that, if a system stops working, then hard drive is the cause of the same. But, this is not a truth, as there are several other reasons also such as damaged port, connectors etc. These all other factors need to be closely monitored before saying that a HDD is only responsible for system non – working situation. I hope this blog post create a sense of awareness to laptop or desktop users about their hard drive’s importance. Useful Content!!!

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