Have you connected your new USB external hard drive to your Windows computer? But do you find that the drive is not showing up or getting detected?
Why?
Well, “EHD (External Hard Drive) not detected or recognized in Windows” is a well-known problem that many users frequently encounter. We’re going to help you understand the causes of this issue and deals with USB External Troubleshooter.
USB External Hard Drive
People use external hard drives for different kinds of purposes. Some use an EHD to back up their important files, such as photos, videos, documents, etc. Some use it to transfer files from one computer to another.
A USB drive is pretty simple to use. You’ll just have to plug the drive into your computer using the USB cable. Once the computer recognizes your drive, you can start backing up or transferring files from/to the drive.
But, the problem occurs when your computer fails to recognize the connected drive. This occurs due to any one of the following reasons:
Using the wrong USB port or cable
Partition issues
Unsupported file system
A driver is corrupted or outdated
Whatever the causes might be, you can resolve the USB external hard drive not detected problem easily with the troubleshooting solutions given below.
Resolving “USB External Hard Drive Not Showing Up”
Best And Quick Solutions
In most cases, the drive will not show up if it is turned off or not connected to your computer securely.
Using a wrong port or cable to connect the drive to your computer might lead to these kinds of drive problems.
Check the USB and power cables' status as the first step of troubleshooting this drive problem.
Make sure that the USB cable from your USB drive to the computer is connected properly.
Also, make sure that you’re using the recommended USB cable for connecting the drive to your computer.
If your drive requires external power to turn on, ensure that its power cable is connected securely to the electrical outlet.
Replace the power or USB cable if necessary.
Advanced Solutions
Using The Disk Management Utility
Is your EHD not displayed in the Windows computer’s My Computer window? Then, look for the connected drive in the Disk Management Utility window. This utility detects both the internal and external hard drives that are connected to your computer.
Even if the connected external drive not showing up on My Computer, you can find it in the Disk Management window. Using this utility, you can create partitions, review sizes, and format the drive.
Open the Disk Management Utility using the Windows + X button combo on your Windows computer. Alternatively, open the Run dialog box and type “diskmgmt.msc” to open it.
Now, check if your USB external hard drive is listed in the opened window.
If yes, create a partition in the drive or format the drive to make it work on your computer or other devices.
Otherwise, the problem might be with the drive file or hardware.
How To Solve USB Malfunction Problem
Make sure that your hard drive is connected to a working USB port.
Check if your Windows computer meets the system requirements of the drive. If not, connect the drive to some other computer that meets its requirements.
Check your drive status. If you find an error message, resolve it and then use the drive.
Open the Device Manager window on your computer.
Expand the USB Controllers or Disk Drives section.
Select and right-click on your EHD.
Choose Properties.
Go to the General tab followed by Device status.
If you find any error message, clear it.
Partitioning The Drive
If your USB drive is listed under the Unallocated area in the Disk Management window, it means the drive has no partition.
In this case, create a partition in your drive to resolve the “drive not detected” problem.
To do so, go to the Unallocated area and right-click on it.
Choose the New Simple Volume option.
Create a new partition in your drive by following the prompts displayed on the screen.
After doing that, check if the drive is listed in Windows.
If not, change the drive letter or path to resolve the problem.
To do so, right-click on your drive partition in the Disk Management window.
Choose the Change Drive Letter or Path option.
Click Add if necessary.
Select the drive letter of your desire from the drop-down menu.
If this method also doesn’t resolve the problem, format the drive to fix it.
Using the call option (on this page), contact us to learn more about the “USB external troubleshooter for a hard drive.”