How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Or Recognized on Windows 10/11

Few things are more frustrating than plugging your external hard drive into your computer and finding that it’s not being detected by your system. The sudden realization that your data is no longer accessible can start to make you panic.

Reasons Why External Hard Drives Become Unreadable or Unrecognizable

While your external hard drive not showing up on Windows 10/11 may seem random at first, there’s a good chance that there are some underlying problems that have caused the drive to become unreadable when you plug it into your computer.

• 💥 Faulty hardware – This could be anything from a faulty cable all the way to a busted hard drive. If there’s one hardware component that’s no longer working, it could be affecting the performance of the entire drive.
• 🔧 Outdated or corrupted drivers – Drivers enable your operating system to communicate with your external hard drive and other devices. If the drivers are outdated, you may be missing out on important compatibility updates. Or, your existing drivers may have become corrupted, rendering them unusable.
• 🤷‍♂️ Unsupported filesystem – If your drive is formatted with Apple’s HSF+ file system, Windows won’t detect it. Instead, it will suggest you format it with one that’s supported. This will happen to any drive that’s using a file system that’s not recognized by the host operating system.
• ⚡ Insufficient power – If you have a USB 3.0 external hard drive, be sure to connect it to a USB 3.0 port. A USB 2.0 port may not be able to supply enough power to support operation. Also, if your drive requires external power, ensure it’s plugged into a power outlet when being used.

7 Proven Methods to Fix External Hard Drives Not Showing Up or Being Recognized on Windows 10/11

The below methods will guide you through making your external hard drive visible and accessible on your computer. Implement each solution in the listed order of this article to ensure you don’t miss any details.

Method 1: Connect to a Different Port

More often than not, it could simply be a bad USB port. Try connecting the hard drive to another USB port. If that fails and you still can’t access the external hard drive, try connecting it to another computer. Lastly, you can try using a different cable to connect the drive to your computer. Eliminating these steps first can save you countless hours of unnecessary troubleshooting if it’s a hardware-related problem.

Method 2: Initialize the Drive

If you have a brand new drive, it may not be initialized and ready to be used with a Windows computer. When a drive is initialized, it erases everything on that drive. Because of this, this is only recommended if it’s a brand new drive with nothing on it, you have a backup you can recover files from or you’re comfortable trying to recover the data using data recovery software.

1. Right-click Start and click Disk Management.
2. Right-click the external drive that says Not Initialized and click Initialize Disk.
3. Press OK.
4. Then, to use the disk, you need to format it. Right-click the unallocated space and click New Simple Volume.
5. Click Next.
6. Specify how large you want the volume to be in MB. Click Next.
7. Assign a drive letter. Windows will automatically assign an available one so click Next.
8. Specify what you want the volume called, as well as the file system. If you want, you can leave these settings as default and click Next.
9. Finally, click Finish. Afterwards, the drive should be usable.

Method 3: Run a Troubleshooter

Windows, by default, comes with various troubleshooters that specialize in fixing specific problems. One such troubleshooter can be used to scan and resolve hardware-related issues like your USB hard drive not showing up. Before moving on, try running a scan with the troubleshooter to make sure it’s nothing that can be fixed automatically.

1. Press Windows Key + S and search Command Prompt. Right-click the first result and click Run as administrator. If you’re prompted to allow access, click Yes.
2. Run the command msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic to bring up the troubleshooter.
3. Click on Advanced and make sure Apply repairs automatically is ticked. Click Next. The troubleshooter will start to scan your system for potential issues.
   
4. When the scan has finished, you can click View detailed information to see an overview of the scan.

Method 4: Update or Reinstall Your Drivers

Drivers allow your external hard drive to communicate with the computer and its operating system. Without drivers, the drive won’t appear or function properly. You can update your drivers to ensure there’s no compatibility issues. If they’re already updated, try reinstalling them in-case they’ve recently become corrupted.

1. Right-click Start and click Device Manager.
2. Expand Disk drives. Right-click your drive then click Properties
   
   The hard drive name may be different in your system.
   
3. Click onto the Driver tab, then click Update Driver.
4. Click Search automatically for drivers. This will scan the internet for compatible up-to-date drivers and automatically download and install them.
5. If this hasn’t worked for you, go back and click Uninstall Device. This will uninstall the existing drivers from your system. Unplug the drive then plug it back in again for the drivers to be reinstalled.

Method 5: Disable USB Selective Suspend

USB Selective Suspend is a setting within Windows that allows it to power down individual USB ports to save power when they’re not in use. This works great for the most part but sometimes Windows gets it wrong and keeps the port powered down, even when it needs to be used. You can disable this setting entirely to eliminate this problem.

1. Press Windows Key + S and search Control Panel. Open the top result.
2. Click Hardware and Sound.
3. Click Power Options.
4. Click Change plan settings on the power plan that’s currently enabled.
5. Click Change advanced power settings.
6. Expand the USB settings dropdown, then USB selective suspend setting. If you’re on a desktop, change the setting to Disabled. If you’re on a laptop, you can choose to disable this setting for either one or both of the On battery and Plugged in settings.
   
7. When complete, click Apply and close the windows.

Method 6: Add or Change the Drive Letter

Windows assigns a drive letter to all connected storage devices. If the drive hasn’t been assigned one, this will result in it being inaccessible due to Windows not recognizing the external hard drive. This can easily be fixed by assigning a drive letter or changing the existing one.

1. Right-click Start and click Disk Management.
2. Right-click on your external hard drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
3. If you have an existing drive letter, select it then click Change. If there’s no drive letter, click Add.
4. From the dropdown menu, select a drive letter and press OK, then OK again to close the dialogue windows.

Method 7: Format the Drive

Performing a format has been a common way of fixing various logical issues with external and internal hard drives. In fact, a new hard drive not showing up may be the result of a missing file system. It involves wiping the hard drive of its contents and basically restoring it to factory settings. If all else has failed, you can try formatting the drive to see if it becomes recognizable.

1. Right-click Start and click Disk Management.
2. Right-click the volume of your drive and click Format.
3. Specify a name for the drive, as well as a file system. Ensure Perform a quick format is ticked. Otherwise, untick it for a full format. When ready, click OK.
4. Confirm the format by pressing OK on the warning box that appears.

How to Recover Files From an External Hard Drive That’s Not Showing Up

Believe it or not, when you delete your data, it doesn’t just disappear immediately. Instead, the information that enabled your operating system to find that data is wiped, allowing the operating system to overwrite that location with new data. This means that the data is still there for a time, albeit inaccessible.

1. Make sure the drive is plugged in. Download, install, and open Disk Drill.
2. Select your external drive from the list and click Search for lost data.
3. The scan time will vary depending on how much data there is and how large your drive is. When ready, click Review found items.
4. Using the dropdown menus, find the files you want to recover and add a tick to their checkbox. When ready, click Recover.
5. Specify where you want the recovered files to go to. It’s best to choose a location that doesn’t reside on the external hard drive. Click OK when ready.

How to Monitor Your External Hard Drive’s Health

Hard drives, because they contain moving components, are susceptible to issues over time. Because of this, hard drives come with their own way of measuring their performance and reliability. This is called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology).

Through the Command Prompt

Windows doesn’t offer an in-depth way of checking this information natively, but you do have the option to get a basic run-down through Command Prompt.

1. Press Windows Key + S and search Command Prompt. Right-click the first result and click Run as administrator. If you’re prompted to allow access, click Yes.
2. Run the command wmic diskdrive get status.

If the command returns the “OK” status for your drives, there’s nothing to worry about. However, if you see “Bad”, “Unknown”, or “Caution”, you should consider performing a full health check using third-party software to do an in-depth scan of the S.M.A.R.T. data.

Through Disk Drill

As we mentioned previously, Disk Drill is a feature-rich data recovery tool. Not only can it recover data, but it can also monitor your drive’s health and alert you if there’s anything of concern. Here’s how you can do one-off checks as well as let Disk Drill handle it for you.

1. Open Disk Drill and select the drive you want to check.
2. Click onto the S.M.A.R.T. tab. Click Check all S.M.A.R.T. attributes.
3. This will give you a run-down of your drive’s S.M.A.R.T. data. When ready, close this Window.
4. To have Disk Drill actively monitor the drive, click on the three dots at the top-right and select Preferences.
5. Click to the S.M.A.R.T. section on the left.
6. Tick Show status in system tray and tick the drives you want to display the temperature for.

Taking a proactive approach and actively checking the health of your external hard drive can help prevent issues that would usually result in your external hard disk not being detected.

FAQ

Conclusion

Hard drives are an invaluable component for storing and transporting our data. For that reason, anything that puts us in a position where we can’t access external hard drive can be frustrating. Luckily, using the methods outlined in this article, you can fix the issues that resulted in your computer not recognizing external hard drive.