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This tip is about the how to Fix ‘External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows’ Issue. So read this free guide, How to Fix ‘External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows’ Issue step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.
How to Fix ‘External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows’ Issue – Guide
I have an 80GB Seagate external hard drive that I plug into my Windows computer to store files, but for some reason it recently stopped showing up in the My Computer folder. It shows up as a device in device manager but i don’t know how to open it. Why is my external hard drive recognized but not open? Take it easy. Here it is how to Fix External Hard Drive Problems That Don’t Appear up on your Windows 10/8/7. In addition, this post also provides solutions for recognized but still invisible external hard drive. external hard drive not shown up in Disk Management means your PC doesn’t recognize it. You can solve the connection problems between your computer and the external hard drive.
Check the hardware connection
You can check if the external hard drive is connected correctly, try plugging the USB cable into another USB port or another PC to see if it can be recognized. If it’s still not showing up up on your system and try other fixes below.
Assign a drive letter to the drive
If the external hard drive letter is missing or conflicts with another drive, it will not appear on your PC. You can verify that a drive letter has been assigned to the drive in Windows Disk Management and assign or change a drive letter for it.
Update or reinstall device driver
Driver issues can cause the external hard drive not to show up Windows 10 error. You can follow the steps to update or reinstall the device driver.
Update USB mass storage device driver
In the Device Manager window, you can also expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click USB Mass Storage Device and select Update Driver or Uninstall Device to update or uninstall the mass storage device driver USB.
Run the hardware and device troubleshooter
Another solution to fix Windows 10 undetected/recognized external hard drive error is to troubleshoot hardware and device issues.
Create a new partition on the drive
If the newly purchased external hard drive is in place and still has no partition, it may not be displayed in Windows 10 File Explorer. You can follow the steps below to create a new partition on it and make it recognized by the computer.
Format external hard drive to NTFS
If the external hard drive is not showing up on Windows 10, it may be caused by incompatible file system format. If there is no data on the drive, you can right-click the drive’s partition in Disk Management and select Format to format the drive to NTFS. But that will lose all data.
Run CHKDSK to check and repair disk errors
If the disk has logical errors or is corrupted, it may cause the external hard disk to be detected but not the opening error in Windows 10. You can use the Windows CHKDSK utility to check and fix disk errors.
Final note
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