How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up In My Computer - Hard Drive Not Detected On Windows 10

[@user-cu3ef2nk7y]

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.

[@jayla7293]

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

[@Aradkashef]

Thanks

[@vsemkarmy6384]

worked for me with new simple volume

[@nikomarcelino8271]

This one was the solution for me. Thank you very much

[@FXpopat]

Whilst others are showing "Format HDD" solution, you're doing a hero's job! Worked like a charm 🤗

[@TheRenderQ]

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!

[@killerlunalove3459]

2 years later and you’re still helping people. Thanks man, you’re a life saver! 😂😁

[@davehoweth5368]

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.

[@Soil_Bound]

Thaank you so much!!!!

[@onlyaspoonful8961]

THANK YOU!!!

[@nsomniak6]

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.

[@prestigepropertymedia]

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.

[@PorterCrow]

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!!

[@John-gj1jr]

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,

[@John-gj1jr]

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?

[@philreus1148]

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.

[@John-gj1jr]

@@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.

[@amptron1776]

@@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.

[@darrelmorgan6266]

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.

[@PixelPanterIJ]

Same thing here… Have you found a fix?

[@datsunyellow2570]

yeah same here unfortunately :(

[@fl0rin09]

Same here just recently...no solution found ...

[@sebastiangonzalez6142]

Same here, still no solution

[@romeofranco5204]

same no solution

[@t.alexmoore]

Wow the disk management step at around 2:20 worked perfectly! Thanks man

[@33goldengirl]

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!

[@mikeburgardt8607]

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.

[@brindleycupido2739]

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

[@TheRenderQ]

You’re welcome! I’m glad my hard drive tutorial helped!

[@Nat-vp5dx]

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.

[@TheRenderQ]

You’re welcome! Really glad you’re got your hard drive figured out! Thanks for watching!

[@alexanderkukumba5561]

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!

[@TheRenderQ]

Excellent! Really glad you got your hard drive working again! Thanks for watching!

[@ngesub]

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.

[@markg9765]

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.

[@PlayGirlShani]

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.

[@DevilMayAsian]

Life saver. I had a spare external harddrive with an unused cable. It did the trick!

[@TheRenderQ]

Great! Glad you had an extra USB cable around!

[@rephgrave]

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

[@TheRenderQ]

Wow! That’s a long time! Glad you kept your hard drive around! Now you’ve got it working again! Thanks for watching!

[@jonathanlee8185]

I have assigned the new external drive as J: and the problem has been fixed.
Many thanks to you.

[@mesinlearning]

Changing the Drive Letter is Working for me.. Thanks good strangers..

[@TheRenderQ]

Excellent! Changing the drive letter is easy and I’m glad that helped get your drive working again!

[@zegercm]

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.

[@TheRenderQ]

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!

[@MartinOscar-hg7bp]

​@@TheRenderQplease I need your help

[@MartinOscar-hg7bp]

​@@TheRenderQwhen click change letter and paths .my hard drive E show up. Should I change the E to H ang letter?

[@n1ftynina]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!! I WAS SCARED I LOST MY FILES I JUST HAD TO ADD A DAMN LETTER. LIFE SAVER FOR REAL

[@astralislux305]

Right clicking on the problem drive has everything grayed out besides "delete volume" and "help". Any advice?

[@ibrahimkhurram8878]

same

[@AhmedAlShammari9]

I changed the cable and successfully working fine, Thanks.

[@bignubeats946]

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

[@LameckOyugi]

Thanks a lot!! For a minute I was griefing though I had lost my files.

[@TheRenderQ]

Glad I could help!

[@FredCDobbs-lq2lf]

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.

[@theothesir]

Dude! I finally fixed my hard drive issue thanks to your video. I never met you but I love you sir!

[@engrchoucha18]

Mine didn't work unfortunately. Also the word "format" isn't showing when I right click it.

[@vanbilly8387]

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?

[@hubert5004]

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.

[@upcomingcloudrapperluca7645]

Changing letter worked for me. Thanks

[@TheRenderQ]

Nice! Glad the simple solution worked!

[@StarlightBettas]

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.

[@RoderikConnors]

Thank you! Had a brand new external hard drive that wasn't working. Followed your steps to assign a drive letter. Now it works!!!

[@HashPapi]

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!

[@vsemkarmy6384]

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!

[@Mika_N_DJTonyTorres]

Thank you it worked.. God bless ...

[@MrKsan05]

Amazing video, it got my new usb external hard drive up and running in about 5 minutes. Thank you. BIG thumbs up

[@TheRenderQ]

You’re welcome! So gal you got your hard drives working again!

[@Artahe]

Well, that helped, thanks! Which is... interesting, because my problem was that my drive didn't have a letter assigned, which is weird because it actually had, but it somehow lost it? Anyway, it worked for me so cheers!

[@kamdarvaibhav]

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

[@TheRenderQ]

You’re welcome! So glad the simple fix of assigning the drive letter worked!

[@RebeccaMartinez-oo3hq]

I just got the Seagate external hard drive, the notification said my computer didn't recognize it and didn't show up in disk management. A new cord is coming today so I'll see if that works.

[@googlespynetwork]

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.

[@Hardno2021]

Thank You!!

[@jamesacuna7044]

thank you.. I've been watching other videos with no avail but your instructions just fix my problem. thank you again

[@fortunateson101]

Unfortunately when I right click on the drive, the drop down menu doesn't allow me to select 'change drive letter and paths'. It is there but is not highlighted, so I can't choose to click on it.

[@sdh568]

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."

[@TheAmbasador99]

This will help me to look like a genius when I'll use it to help someone, thanks.

[@rosejose4743]

im glad i stayed until the end. im pretty sure my hard drive is formatted for my macbook.

[@mikehalpern384]

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 ... :-)

[@LALontoc]

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.

[@williamramos3350]

It worked...it was unallocated. Had to reformat. Thank you for the valuable info.

[@Sryvo]

when i right click the disc all the options are not highlighted, no option to format or anything, only help is highlighted.

[@mrtrilobite4]

please help, when I try to initialise my disk it comes up with data error cyclic redundancy check and won't initialise.

[@MrGoodnplenty1957]

My external hard drive doesn't make the noise when it is plugged in and it doesn't appear under disc management. It doesn't appear on any computer i use.
sounds like i will have to take it to get fixed.

[@madukawhitney2950]

What if it doesn’t make the sound when you plug it in and it doesn’t show up either

[@TheRenderQ]

If you don’t hear the chime when you plug in your external drive here try a different USB port and for sure try a different USB cable. I had to change the USB cable on one of my drives to make it work. Also try plugging it it in on another computer if possible to be sure the problem isn’t isolated to your computer. If you can tell the drive is powered up and spinning it’s a good possibility you will get it working with one of those tips. Hope you get your external drive working soon!

[@madukawhitney2950]

@@TheRenderQ hello thank you for the reply. I already tried all of these and it didn’t work. I changed the USB port, changed the wire, tried it on 3 other laptops and also checked the disk management to see if it would appear but none of it worked🥺💔

[@madukawhitney2950]

Maybe it’s damaged beyond repair or something

[@plrbere]

@TheRenderQ when i right click on the disk the change letter option doesnt come up do you know how to fix that?

[@richardre2885]

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.

[@stefanosk.nikolaidis6491]

And in case that the hard drive is functioning (no damage etc) the light is on, no wierd sounds, the pc recognizes that there's a disc yet it doenst show any other details and any attempt on doing any of the above crushes the pc? what then?

[@snehaldoshi9848]

Have u got resolution sir?

[@thesilentgeneration]

I have the same problem only my disk is disk 4 no letter But when I follow the directions and right-click on the drive the change drive letter is greyed out? WHAT TO DO, Win 11? It is a healthy primary partition

[@matthewbell2150]

thank you so much. had picturs of my grandfather whoo died 2 years ago on it. was able to save them. now backed up onto computer and another hard drive for safty.

[@awgtaufiq7695]

Same issue with my external hard drive.The led is light up, but I don't see any folder show up. My drive is also the same brand.

[@austindale3129]

And what if nothing is showing up in disk manager? I have an external Drive that I was trying to use to clone my computers C drive with macrium reflect and it stalled out and now the drive is non-existent no matter what computer I plug it into.

[@mrcrispy6480]

For me its showing up as unknown and not initialized tried updating the drives computer said that they were up to the best one and i can't initialize it either it's say can't do this due to fatal hardware error

[@Alaa.M945]

Excellent informative video, really I so appreciated for being this video solved my problem with my usb external hdd…thanks so much 👍👍👍

[@JMVD48]

Thank you very much, the explanation about Disk Management and assigning a new Drive Letter is VERY important to me. 👍

[@kylesimpson6729]

For me I plugged mine into my xbox, downloaded some games and then after about a week I plugged it back into my pc because it had one of the games I wanted to play on it but when I plug it in I hear it and it lights up but nothing appears even when I go to that thing where it says allocated and stuff there isn't one for my hard drive

[@marcodeluca4068]

Toshiba mini external drive 2TB just started blinking sounds like its running but does not should up on my PC even when I search for it. I bought this couple months ago because I heard that moving external is salvageable over soldi state in case I get a problem.

[@hourglassescapes4544]

Thank you so much for this. I was able to fix 2 drives today.

[@TheRenderQ]

You’re welcome! So glad you got your hard drives working again! Thanks for watching!

[@mediaaccess2]

Thank you so much! I forgot this stuff. So scary. I made my new external WD 5TB into a bootable and then it disappeared. Whew.

[@tcheraya]

My laptop doesn't make any notification sound when I'm trying plug it in 😢 Is my HDD broken or what? But the HDD has lights on and create sound inside 😢

[@WeeAddy]

My drive isn't even appearing in the Disk Management section, so I can't assign a new letter or format it. It was fine when I purchased it, worked for a few weeks, would occasionally drop connection at random, and then one day it just stopped working altogether. When plugged in the USB connection noise plays, the light on the drive is on, and you can hear it spinning, but after 2mins or so the disconnect noise plays - but the light stays on. I've no idea what's wrong with it, or how to fix it, or if it's fixable at all.

[@go4384]

When you connect a device via USB, it should make a chime in Windows. My external hard drive is not making that chime, like its autoplay software internally is corrupted. Have not heard back from Seagate about how to resolve this but it's the most important evidence to me that the hard drive itself is the problem.

[@shori200]

TYSM I tried to figure out the issue with a few different videos, but struggled to understand. I got mine working from watching your vid tysm

[@7xtussy]

finally a video that actually helps fix

[@TRYCKSTERRBLX]

what if the problem drive doesnt appear on the disk management at all? I'm using a seagate 750gb sshd and it won't appear in disk management.

[@bradsoy8374]

no "Chnage Drive Letter" selection, but only "New Simple Volume" when right click on unlocated drive, any advice?

[@suliemanmohammed2011]

Thanks for the last part of the video especially. I think my drive has been formatted to an apple mac. I'll see how I can reformat it. Thanks again.

[@abhijeetsrivastava772]

Heyy👋 I have a new SanDisk SSD 1tb which has a lot of important data stored in it, a lot of it, and suddenly it stopped showing on my PC I tried everything you told me and also tried a lot of other methods but still nothing is working. Please help. There is a lot of important data stored in my SSD, please help me🙏🙏

[@taqke]

whenever i plug my hard drive in my laptop it ends up making my computer super slow & nothing will load unless i unplug it. any tips on fixing this issue?

[@romanmeshko2550]

Thanks a lot for the video. Solution with disk management and adding a letter helped :)

[@carston101]

Turns out my dirve needed to be initialized.
Thanks!! Now i can get on with jailbreaking my ps3.

[@user-wg5ue2fe2e]

what should i do when in disk management the external drive doesn't show up?

[@ayoubmorjane7722]

thank you that fixed my issues I noticed that this happened when I plug-in for the first time

[@kylepercoski5916]

I can't seem to even get the "change drive letter" option to be clickable. When I plug in my WD hard drive, it show up in my disk manager screen as "disk1" but i can't get any option to change the drive letter after that. Help please!

[@xskat5671]

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?"

[@jek7726]

me as well. the option to assign drive letter doesnt show up, only properties is showing.

[@bigballofpaint4407]

@Slaven Harkin Ty so much, was struggling on this part.

[@BYHOLMS.]

@Slaven Harkin Will this method delete my hard drives files?

[@BYHOLMS.]

@Slaven Harkin @TheRenderQ are you able to confirm if this will delete the files on the hard drive?

[@hopenavajo1391]

Thanks 👍 for the expert advice,it took frustration after frustration, you're awesome.

[@adrineabad2987]

I watched over 6 videos and couldn't figure it out, thankyou soooooo much W video.

[@the.real.ciaomich]

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.

[@abrahammichael3632]

changing ports worked for me. but it only works on usb 2.0 port but not usb 3.0. i tried different cables and even different PCs

[@jesper4512]

The driver doesn't have a letter assigned, but can't choose the command to change letter. Can you help?

[@Bioluv193]

Thank you for your video. I found out that the cable that goes from the external hard drive to the computer is not working and I need to get another one.

[@user-zs8hz1us5s]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT ALL DAY!!!!!!!

[@nikkidix-stork5077]

This did not work for me. My device is not showing up in disk management so I can not assign a letter to it. It worked fine last week, and the drive also works perfectly fine on another PC. What can I do?

[@waimeaguyz9074]

Genius personified, worth subscribing to. Thanks for sharing your expertise. Have a good day.

[@jasonflores3737]

my drive isn't showing up in this PC section. I went to the command prompt I tried to clean it and that worked but making partition it fails. and in the create and format hard disk partitions it says unknown not initialized. I tired everything in this video and right-clicking it doesn't do anything.

[@StonedNoob]

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.

[@azkamuhammad4176]

mine is registered in disk management but not initialized, intried to initialize it, it shows error: data error (cyclic redundancy check) why it is happening?

[@T_t418]

the disk management function does work for me.
it works fine before with orico 2.5 hdd enclosure with mx500 2tb inside but after trying to plug this thing with my phone and then back to the pc, it won't work.
after i open the disk management, it suddenly connect, make a chime and show the folder right away.
i don't even reconfigure the letter for the drive.
Thx for the tip. :)

[@miguelalexandresimoesneves8660]

Mine doesn't let me change path, just has the option to convert to a dynamic disl, which I don't know what is