How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up In My Computer - Hard Drive Not Detected On Windows 10
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up In My Computer - Hard Drive Not Detected On Windows 10
Western Digital 4TB Drive: amzn.to/3zo75Qt
USB 3.0 Hard Drive Cable: amzn.to/2WBrAe4
What do you do when your external hard drive won't show up on your Windows computer? Keep watching and I'll show you 3 solutions you can try. This works with any external USB hard drive that powers up and is not making any strange noises. However, please watch the entire video before making any changes to your hard drive to avoid losing important data. So when I plug in my device, naturally it would just show up. Here are some simple things to check. Try plugging the drive into another USB port or computer. If the hard drive doesn't show up, then try using different USB cable. For me, swapping out USB cables has worked in the past.
But what if your hard drive powers up but still won't show up in Windows Explorer? It's possible that the drive hasn't been unassigned a drive letter. Without it, the computer knows the drive is there but I can't access it. So let me explain what's happening. When I plug my drive into a USB port, I can hear the chime alert. But it's not listed in the Devices and Drives sections. What I need to do is right click on the Windows Start button and click on Disk Management. In the next window it'll show me a list of all the drives connected to this computer. On the problem disk it has no letter assigned to it. But my computer knows it's there but it's not letting me access it.
Here's how to make it work. Right click on the drive and click Change Drive Letter and Paths. In the next window click the Add button. Then make sure the circle is selected where it says Assign the Following Drive Letter. And in the drop down menu choose a letter. I'll select H. Then as soon as I click OK the contents of my drive pop up and now I can use it like normal. And just so you know, there is no risk of losing data on your external drive by changing drive letters. But the drive letter you choose could affect programs that have linked this hard drive under a different letter. I hope that makes sense!
One situation I've run into before is connecting 2 drives that have been assigned the same letter. If this is the case, the 2nd hard drive will not show up. But following my instructions to change the drive letter will make the 2nd hard drive accessible again.
If nothing else works it's possible that the drive is corrupted or malfunctioning. There may be no way to fix a drive that is suffering from mechanical malfunctions. But if the data is corrupted there is something you can try... but it will also erase all your files! So I want to emphasize that the next step will delete everything on your hard drive! So only proceed if nothing else works!
Once again I've plugged in my external hard drive but it's not showing up in Windows Explorer. I'll right click on the Windows Start button and click on Disk Management. When I've determined that I absolutely can't recover the files on my drive, I'm going to have to reformat it. To do this, right click on the problem drive and this time choose Format. Here I can rename the drive and choose a type of formatting. If you work on Windows only then choose NTFS. If you want the drive to work on both Windows and Mac then choose exFAT. And when you're ready to delete everything click OK. Since my drive is working I'm going to cancel out. But please remember, once you click OK everything on your hard drive will be deleted and there's no way to get it back!
Ok and here's one last thing. It's possible that your drive has been formatted for Apple computers. So it's worth plugging it into a Mac to see if the hard drive will show up there. A Mac formatted drive won't work on a Windows computer and it has to be reformatted so Windows can read it. If any of these tips work, I would immediately back up the drives to a working hard drive to avoid any loss later. Hopefully some of these tips help you get your hard drive working again! If this video was helpful please give me a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button to stay up to date on all my weekly videos!
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
***Equipment I Use For My Videos***
Canon EOS M6: amzn.to/2pwQ0Vq
Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 Lens: amzn.to/31mLfLq
Tokina 11-16mm Wide Angle Lens: amzn.to/33TFaYH
Fotodiox EF to EOS M Lens Adapter: amzn.to/31u3AGq
Comica CVM-WM300A Wireless Microphones: amzn.to/31tbiAD
Aputure Amaran AL528W LED Light: amzn.to/2VRuwyK
Kamerar SD-1 Camera Slider: amzn.to/2VUB5Ax
AVermedia HDMI Game Capture Module: amzn.to/31phsSp - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Didn't think I'd ever understand what exactly the problem was let alone be able to diagnose where it lay and never in my wildest dreams think I'd be able to fix it. But , with your clear and simple instructions, the extreme panic lifted - and I can now access my external hard drives. Still can't believe it!!!! I am so happy!!! May I add my heartfelt thanks to the huge number already posted.
Whilst others are showing "Format HDD" solution, you're doing a hero's job! Worked like a charm 🤗
Excellent! I’m really glad you got your hard drive working again! Yeah formatting the drive shouldn’t be the first step! Who wants to lose their data from the get go? Thanks for watching!
2 years later and you’re still helping people. Thanks man, you’re a life saver! 😂😁
IF IT DOESNT WORK TRY THIS! once you’re on disk management click on the capacity part that says how many gbs the disk has and click on delete volume. for me the option of changing the disk letter wasn’t even there. then click new simple volume and it should give u a little pop up. click next until it’s fully installed. then when u open file explorer you should see it labeled new volume! hope that helps
Thanks
worked for me with new simple volume
This one was the solution for me. Thank you very much
does this delete all the files in the disk though?
when I go to disk management, the whole thing is just greyed out.
OMG YOU HAVE SAVED MY LIFE THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH. I WISH I COULD PAY YOU, IT FULLY WORKED. FOR YOUR GOOD ADVICE I HAVE FOLLOWED AND SUBSCRIBED YOU. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS VIDEO MEANS TO ME THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY LIFE AND CAREER!!!! PLEASE DONT EVER STOP MAKING THESE VIDEOS!
Excellent! Really glad you got your hard drive working again! Thanks for watching!
I got to the point where you right click on the drive. The "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." is greyed out. The only options available are the "Delete Volume" and "Help". I thought sure this would work when I saw it. I have 4 partitions on the drive, all of which say "Healthy; (Primary Partition)" and are respectively as 1.00 GB, 500 GB, 500 GB and 862.02 GB. I should say this drive was originally used to store DVR recordings on Dish satellite.
A little help, if you please. Thanks,
I just watched your other video on this subject where you clicked on "Delete Volume" . Should I delete all the partitions in the above mentioned post?
Hi John, I've got exactly the same problem...all the options are greyed out except those two. Have you found any solution to this? None of the videos/websites I've found so far address this issue. Any ideas? Thanks.
@@philreus1148 I chose the option "Delete Volume and went from there. To be honest, I don't remember all the steps, but it's fairly straight-forward after that. I was able to copy files to the external drive as you would normally.
Mine had only been used for Dish dvr recordings, and had four volumes. I deleted them all, since I had no idea I'd ever use them again. I think they were proprietary to Dish anyway.
Does your drive in Files say "Healthy; (Primary Partition)" and then list sizes?
I hope this helps and wish I could remember more of what I did, but I think this will work. If not, hit me back and I'll try to go through the steps again without actually deleting anything.
@@John-gj1jr Thanks for posting this even though it doesn't help me as I need the files on the external hard drive so can't just delete and start over.
@@amptron1776
Did you find a solution?
I watched a dozen other youtube videos trying to find the problem. None of them helped. Thank God I eventually stumbled upon this one! Thank you so much for fixing my problem!
assigning a letter worked a treat! nice one. Although I couldn't just right click and select a letter, it only gave me a few options and opened a setup wizard when i had to press next to get to the part where I could assign a letter. Nice one mate.
Thaank you so much!!!!
THANK YOU!!!
This doesn't work. Mine doesn't even register in disk mgmt. It is however listed in device mgr but doesn't show up in dsk mgmt. It opens just fine on another laptop. I find it astonishing that there seems to really be no computer people anywhere I have seen on the net who seem to really understand this issue very well. No offense to the uploader. From what I am seeing this is in fact more often a problem with the host computer and not the hard drive itself. The cable being the issue is even more rare. If an ext HD has opened on your computer for a long time with no issues and then one day it doesn't, it is likely something to do with the computer, not the HD.
Same thing here… Have you found a fix?
yeah same here unfortunately :(
Same here just recently...no solution found ...
Same here, still no solution
same no solution
I followed your initial steps and plugged my drive into another port. That didn't work. Next step, I plugged my drive into another laptop, and it worked. I then plugged the drive back into my laptop, and it worked! I have no idea why, but I am so relieved! Thank you!
I had tried a couple other fixes but your suggestion and directions to assign a drive letter did the trick. Thank you so much! I need the external USB drives to work so I can back up photos.
I have assigned the new external drive as J: and the problem has been fixed.
Many thanks to you.
Wow the disk management step at around 2:20 worked perfectly! Thanks man
Right clicking on the problem drive has everything grayed out besides "delete volume" and "help". Any advice?
same
Thank you so much. The external drive was an added Christmas present for my son. You just helped me to get it working.
I am thankful for your help.
May GOD BLESS you!
Peace, Lynne
🍃💜✝️💜🍃
This has took me for over 4 years to get my hard drive working again, thanks you so much with you help I got it working again
Wow! That’s a long time! Glad you kept your hard drive around! Now you’ve got it working again! Thanks for watching!
Thanks man. It was actually as simple as changing the cable.
Sir my Extrnal hard disk is not showing up in the disk management tool bar too. Please suggest any methods you have.
Thank you! I've been trying all day to figure out why my external drive was not showing in Windows explorer. This fixed the problem :D
You’re welcome! Glad you were able to get your external hard drive working again!
when I open the disk management, the interface just blank. but when I unplug the hdd, and open the disk management again, the option show up.
Managed to solve it by assigning a letter to it. I thought I had lost of my photos from many, many years ago, thanks so much!
Thank you for providing a clear and simple explanation/demonstration of how to fix the problem.
Excellent video. Most sites start of by talking about formatting drive. How stupid is that and they call it advice. It should be the last step. Yours is great. Step by step. Thanks
You’re welcome! I’m glad my hard drive tutorial helped!
Dude! I finally fixed my hard drive issue thanks to your video. I never met you but I love you sir!
Straight forward & very easy to follow instructions. Thank you, I had to come back & give the video a like / comment , my drive wasn’t showing up but this helped.
Really glad you got your hard drive working again!
Oh my God! I nearly lost my 1Tera byte hard thinking its not working as new as it is. You saved me. Thank you so much
GOSH MAN!!, The way you explain it is how it should be explained! I guess the other people aren't very good at explaining things, because I've been going through videos for 2 hours to no avail, UNTIL your video..HUGE THANK YOU!!!! ❤
Thank you it worked.. God bless ...
Thank you. I couldn't access my external hard drive for over a year. But it's now fixed & I can store games to it again.
Thanks it worked for me. Simply assigning the drive letter!
You're welcome! I'm glad you were able to get your hard drive working again!
Life saver. I had a spare external harddrive with an unused cable. It did the trick!
Great! Glad you had an extra USB cable around!
Thank you, didn't even have to follow the video to the end b4 the problem was solved. Assigned drive letter and works perfectly. I am now a new subscriber.
Thank you so much! I wasn't expecting it but it was trying with a different cable that worked out for me.
You’re welcome! Glad you were able to get your external hard drive working again! A USB cable often seems like an unlikely problem but it’s easy to try. And in your case it was a faulty cable.
Tysm my case was the external hard drive didn't show up because i was restoring the capacity after i use it to install window 10. after i use disk management method and it works! thanks again.
You’re welcome! Really glad you’re got your hard drive figured out! Thanks for watching!
This was very helpful for me. I'm writing this in 2024, so it's still applicable. Thank you ❤
You’re welcome! So glad you got your hard drive to connect!
The video is a little out dated at this point in time, but you nudged me in the right direction and I was able to figure it out. Thank you so much!!
Thank you so so very much for this video, I wish I have seen it before, I gave away one of my hard drives because I thought it didn't work. But now I know how to. Thank you ❤
Thank you! Had a brand new external hard drive that wasn't working. Followed your steps to assign a drive letter. Now it works!!!
Thank you very much, you just save me a lot of troubles 😢❤❤
You’re welcome! Glad you were able to get your hard drive working again!
Thank you for this. I bought a 1TB for my rog ally dock and was getting confused why the storage wasn't show. Your video help me ❤❤
Thanks alot that helped me for real ❤️
Glad my video was able to help you!
Thank you So much, I had so much content on my hard drive but ever since I had updated to windows 11 the drive stop showing but now its fixed
This actually helped, Geek Squad tried to charge me $400 and I wish I had a found this video two years ago and this video so happened to be two years old thank you so much bro you literally saved me so much money
I have a problem,
For method 2 when I right-click on the new disk, the option to "Assign the following drive letter" or "Mount in the following NTFS folder" it doesn't give me the option to Assign the following drive letter" (the option you chose in the tutorial).
Did I miss something? Which option should I pick? What will happen if I choose, "Mount in the following NTFS folder?"
me as well. the option to assign drive letter doesnt show up, only properties is showing.
@Slaven Harkin Ty so much, was struggling on this part.
@Slaven Harkin Will this method delete my hard drives files?
@Slaven Harkin @TheRenderQ are you able to confirm if this will delete the files on the hard drive?
Thanks. Helped with my Samsung 999Pro ssd I just bought. Couldn't figure out if it was the Sabrent enclosure or the ssd. But this worked perfect.
thank you (from the non geek) Been trying to use a external sata drive for back up and it wouldn't show up. You have rendered my sata usable! I'm now a subscriber.
Not sure if your still reading comments this later years but I had two SSD cards that I had put some Linux distros on them so I had the problem on them showing up on windows 10 because they were practically new by following your second step was able to wipe the SSD clean and add a letter also so thanks for this information on HDD drives I have never even thought about disk manger.
@TheRenderQ when i right click on the disk the change letter option doesnt come up do you know how to fix that?
If the hard drive is empty (eg it's new) you can just create a local partition on it called a 'simple' partition and then allocate it as much space a s you want. When you do this your computer will ask to assign a drive letter to it. After this your computer should instantly recognise it. Enjoy.
Thank you! I didn't think the problem was with the cable because that cable was working perfectly to charge my phone's external battery pack. But after watching this video I found the cable that came with the external drive and it started right up. Apparently there's a difference. Thanks for the help!
So glad you tried another cable. I had that experience too. And when I changed my USB cable my hard drive worked!
Thank You for taking all the Efforts in Sharing this Video. Renaming Drive Letter through Disk Management in Windows 7 was helpful and it worked properly
You’re welcome! So glad the simple fix of assigning the drive letter worked!
Thank you, assigning letter helped me
You’re welcome! So glad that assigning a drive letter worked!
Will you be able to get your files back using disk drill or any recovery app after formatting it completely?
There is no way to recover your files after your format your drive. Formatting a drive will permanently erase all your data. There is no way to get any files back after you format it.
Amazing video, it got my new usb external hard drive up and running in about 5 minutes. Thank you. BIG thumbs up
You’re welcome! So gal you got your hard drives working again!
The chime alert @1:04 made me think my hard drive just connected randomly while watching 🤣
Thank you so much. I saved a lot of time and frustration checking the cord with another drive and vice-versa which was much easier than trying all of the other solutions first.
if you have 5 hard drives, and want to use them for backup files , how do you use them as external, i have seen a device like NAS device, where you can connect multiple hard drives, to backup or use your hard driver externally, and can disconnect any of them at any time. not sure what the device is called? do you know?
WORKED FOR ME , ASSIGNED A LETTER TO MY DRIVE AND BOOOOOM, Thanks man
Nice! Glad it was as easy as assigning a drive letter. It’s a pretty common problem.
Great video, great content and well explained in very simple context 👏🏾 well done and thank you 🙏🏾
Glad it helped!
thank you.. I've been watching other videos with no avail but your instructions just fix my problem. thank you again
5 drives currently connected to my desktop; C: is a 2TB NVME SSD, D: and E: are each internal 1TB HDD SATA for work processing and temp storage (PC came with 1 of these, and the other was an old one that I threw in for the heck of it), F: is a 2TB external HDD for media storage, and G: is an external 2TB SSD for temporary storage while moving files to the F: drive, after cleaning up duplicate and no longer wanted media files. The new C: drive that I just installed was originally a 256g NVME SSD.
With all of these drives and all the files being moved around, I went in and named the two internal HDD drives "Upper HDD" and "Lower HDD", because they are physically mounted one above the other in the case. This is so that I can remember which is which more easily. They retain their Drive letter, but the names give me a better mental picture of what's being moved to where.
The G: drive will be removed after all the files are transferred to the correct locations. Maybe I should invest in a NAS?
Thanks so much. The Disk management worked like a charm. Sadly I have been trying to open this drive for over a year now. Other websites told me to use a different computer. That worked but they didnt tell me how to make it work on my computer. What is even sadder is the information I had came from much more popular websites and youtubes with more views. Glad I found you.
you just saved me a hundred bucks man! You rock! Power went out here in Upstate NY near Syracuse in one of our famous snow storms and did something to my new external hard drive. Your video got it working again.
That’s awesome! I’m really glad you were able to get your hard drive working again! I’m sure that’s a big relief! Thanks for watching!
@@TheRenderQplease I need your help
@@TheRenderQwhen click change letter and paths .my hard drive E show up. Should I change the E to H ang letter?
I've got a Question. I have a drive that was formatted, then files were transferred to that drive. Thereafter, the drive will not mount. It sometimes just clicks but does not spin up.
Can the drive be erased when it is in this state?
Are drives in this state returned to the manufacturer when returned to the store or are they reused with the information on them being erased?
This will help me to look like a genius when I'll use it to help someone, thanks.
Thanks 👍 for the expert advice,it took frustration after frustration, you're awesome.
I have a 2TB external HDD not being detected by my PC. When I go to Disk Management, I immediately get a prompt saying unreadable disk must be initialized before Disk Management can access it, and an option with MBR pre-selected for partitioning. I run the process and it says "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."
Thank you very much!
It worked, my old pc HDD didn't show up in my new pc
trying to swap data between two different computers somehow resulted in it no longer showing up on the second computer, and then it stopped showing up on the first computer for seemingly no reason, this may have fixed it so thank you! i can at least look at the files now and select one for backup.
Thank you, I changed the USB slot and it working, your a star God Bless
Thanks a lot!! For a minute I was griefing though I had lost my files.
Glad I could help!
What computers are you guys using I don't have these option 4th video I've pissin watched now
In disk management, it shows "Not initialized" when I right click and click initialize disk a window comes I have chosen both MBR and GPT to initialize it, after I click OK, after a few seconds an error comes up, "the request failed due to a fatal device hardware error". What should I do
Thank it worked, however it says that my hard drive is empty despite it showing 4500 GB out of 5000. Any case this might be?
Changing letter worked for me. Thanks
Nice! Glad the simple solution worked!
I watched over 6 videos and couldn't figure it out, thankyou soooooo much W video.
My disk manager will not allow me to assign my external hard drive a path or letter. I did format it for my Mac OS and currently do have backups on their but I was wondering if I could use the hard drive for both OS or would I have to format it to windows and lose all my backups.
There is a way to make the external drive work on both Mac and PC. But it will require formatting and erasing everything on it. For it to work on both operating systems you need to format the drive to ExFAT format. But I emphasize that this will erase everything on the drive. Make sure you’ve backed up your data before proceeding.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!! I WAS SCARED I LOST MY FILES I JUST HAD TO ADD A DAMN LETTER. LIFE SAVER FOR REAL
im glad i stayed until the end. im pretty sure my hard drive is formatted for my macbook.
I see Disk 1 Unknown. But when I right click next to it - nothing shows up. It's just a gray area. No long blue line, as it shown in your video. (I do see options when I right click on Disk 0 for Windows C). Why is that?
Im having this same issue
Works but I think older windows so everything was labeled differently so... It was useful and got me to the right area to fix my drive
Thank you because this worked for me. Really appreciate it.
Changing the Drive Letter is Working for me.. Thanks good strangers..
Excellent! Changing the drive letter is easy and I’m glad that helped get your drive working again!
Thanks I never thought to check the cable it work! thanks so much
I cant see my harddrive even in the disk management window. It was my older laptops HDD, which I am now using as a Hard drive or at least trying to.
Any advise as to how one can solve this problem.
Thank you very much, this is the best advice I found on the internet, even WD corp does't know what is the problem but you help me a lot, thank you for everything and if someone is reading my comment then at 1:00 is solution of my problem.
thanks, i've been trying for 2-3 hours to make an external drive show up in windows explorer. with your video I fixed the problem in 5 minutes ... :-)
Genius personified, worth subscribing to. Thanks for sharing your expertise. Have a good day.
At 1:52, when i right click on the drive, im not getting what u get.. i get properties, and help.
I did a very similar thing to work mine, however "Format..." and "Change Drive Letter" didn't show up when I right clicked. The reason was because all the space in the Disk was Unallocated. For some reason, though... I went through the Computer Management app and went to Disk Management from there, and the rest of the video worked. Had to set up to disk was the problem for me I guess. I hope this helps anyone else with a similar problem to me. Video still helped me generate the idea!
It didn't work for me, what worked is to delete a volume and create a new simple volume, as in one of the comment above. but thanks!
Wow, when I right click this menu pops up but I am not given these options. Maybe because the external hard drive is not "initialized"?
You made my life easier man tnx
Glad you were able to get your external hard drive working again!
I changed the cable and successfully working fine, Thanks.
thanks so much. worked perfectly.
i have a different problem, my wife just bought a new laptop, and i put the old ssd to an enclosure, but it not showing in my wife's laptop, both in explorer or disk management, but i heard the chime sound. When I plug the enclosure to mine, it's working properly. I already update all the driver usb, but the problem persist, hope you know the answer..
í have the same problem, did you fix it?
Do you know what kind of adapter do i need to connect an old hard drive to my new computer? it is Mepdor Hard-disc D54DX-4K 2001
My WD passport ultra is having this problem. I was able to find it in disk management on an old windows 10 machine, but I am not given the option to assign a letter. Any other ideas? I do not want to reformat it.
I just bought it, should I try to fix the hard drive or just return it or get refund... What I'm trying to ask is since the hard drive has problems from the get-go it means it's not in a good condition?
It worked...it was unallocated. Had to reformat. Thank you for the valuable info.
My problem is that I can hear the chime when I connect the HD. I can see it briefly in Device Manager but not Disk Management. The HD will disappear from the Device Manager. Hoping purchasing a new cable will solve the problem.
Thank you so so much ❤