Question

How to fix External Hard Drive not Showing up in Windows 10?

Hello, Please let me know How to fix External Hard Drive not showing up in Windows 10? I tried many times but failed. So Can anyone have any idea? Help me.

Davelakins 1   Ans 3 months ago
Answer - 1
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External Hard Drive not Showing up in Windows 10

Have you ever experienced the situation where your computer device fails to recognise the hard drive even after establishing a connection? If yes, then the driver of your device is either outdated or corrupted. Such an issue can be very difficult to fix. Mentioned below are some of the solutions that you can apply to fix the problem of external hard drive showing up on Windows 10. 

Prior to moving ahead with the process, disconnecting the external hard drive from the port and insert it in some other port. You can also take another USB wire and then check. In case both the ports are working properly, then that means the problem resides in the USB wire. Mentioned below are the steps that you need to perform to fix the issue. 

Step 1: Run the troubleshooter

Step 2: Update the device driver and then reinstall it.

Step 3: form a new partition in your drive. 

Step 4: Disable the USB setting. 

1) Reinstall or update the device driver

In order to reinstall or update the device driver, all you are required to do is to press the Windows and R key simultaneously. This will launch the Run dialog box. There, you are required to enter devmgmt.msc. After that, start searching for the external device from the list. 

In case a red or yellow sign appears on the screen, then select its name and then right click on it and then choose update driver software. Moreover, if any unknown device shows up, then update that device as well. Choose the option of “Search automatically for the updated driver software. After that, carry out the directions to complete the process. In case this doesn’t work, then uninstall the driver and then reinstall it. 

2) Run troubleshooter

The very first thing that you can do is to run the Windows USB troubleshooter and hardware and device troubleshooter and see if this solves your problems. The automated tools will scan the USB/hardware attached to the computer device and see if there are any issues and eliminate them automatically. You can start searching for them through start search or you can also go to the Windows 10 settings troubleshooter page. 

3) Disable the USB suspend setting

In case the solutions mentioned above don’t resolve the issue, then try fixing your issue by disabling theUSB suspend setting. Go to the control panel of your device and then launch power options. After that, you need to go to Additional power settings. 

After that, select the option of change plan settings given right beside the power plan you selected. After that, you need to navigate to the “Change advanced power settings by going to the USB settings and then start searching for the USB selective suspend setting and then click on disabled. Select the option of Apply and then click on Exit. 

4) Create a new partition on your drive

In case you have never connected your PC to the hard drive ever before, then your device may refuse to detect the device as no partitions have been created so far. Nevertheless, the Windows Disk Management tool may recognize the same. So, check if the Disk Management tool can find the hard drive or not. 

Launch the Disk Management tool and then enter diskmgmt.msc in the search bar and then press enter. If the drive appears in the list appearing on the disk management window, then all you need to do is to format it. This way, the drive will appear the next time you connect it to the computer system. In case you find that the drive is unallocated or unpartitioned, then format it and then create partitions. 

So, these are all the things that you can do if the external hard drive is not showing on Windows 10.

Ron Wagner 21 June 2021