If you have run out of space to store files and folders on your local hard drive in your PC, using an external hard drive, a peripheral device is the best solution. Using an external hard drive, you could backup all the data and make space in your local storage. To use an external hard drive, it's straightforward, plug it into your PC and wait for your PC to detect the Hard Drive.
However, depending on your External Hard drive or PC, there could be issues. For instance, your PC might fail to detect the connected external hard drive. This issue is not that unusual. It's widespread among those who are using an external hard drive. There could be numerous reasons for the external hard drive not to show up. Therefore there are multiple ways to fix the issue. This article will discuss the most popular methods to improve the external hard drive that won't show up the problem on Windows.
Disconnect the Power Supply for a moment
It is not the most technical solution to fix the external hard drive issue, however, due to some bug, your PC might fail to recognize the USB complex drive device, and you can select the bug by cutting the power supply for a few minutes.
- Firstly, Shut down your PC, click on the Start Menu, select the switch off option, and confirm it.
- Once your PC has shut down completely, turn off the CPU, switch off the power supply to the CPU. Plug out the cable from the power supply port and wait for a few minutes.
- Now plug the CPU power cable back into the power supply port, turn on the switch, connect the external hard drive and turn on your PC. External Hard Drive should resolve the issue by now. If not, then try other methods mentioned in this article.
- Some external hard drives require a power source and a manual intervention to turn on the external hard drive. However, an external hard drive will usually consume power from your PC and will turn on automatically. But if your external hard drive requires an external power source, make sure you have connected it, or disconnect and connect it again. Also, press the button on your external drive to turn on the power.
Try other USB ports on your PC
Due to your PC's damaged USB ports, your PC does not detect the external hard drive. USB ports tend to get damaged over time, over so much usage. Thankfully every PC has more than one USB port.
- Disconnect the external hard drive from the current USB port, and try connecting the external hard drive to other USB ports on your PC, check which ones work.
- If none of the USB ports works and your PC is still not detecting the external hard drive, then the USB plug of your external hard drive may be damaged. Therefore, we suggest you try checking the external hard drive by connecting it to another PC if available.
- If the PC detects the external hard drive, the issue is more likely to be with your PC, driver issues perhaps.
Uninstall, Update and Install USB Drivers For External Hard Drive
The drivers installed on your PC for the external hard drive might be outdated or corrupted. Hence your PC is unable to detect the external hard drive when connected. You will see that the hard drive is getting power from the PC, the lights will turn on, but the hard drive is not showing up on your PC.
The driver issue in windows is also shared with other peripheral devices, like mice and a keyboard. Therefore, you could uninstall and install the drivers again or update the driver for the external hard drive. To do so, follow the steps mentioned below.
- Connect the external device to your computer, press the Windows Key to bring the Start Menu on your Desktop, and start typing Device Manager. From the windows Search result, click and open the Windows Device Manager application, open the application as an administrator to avoid any further issues.
- Click on the downward arrow beside the Disk Drive option to expand the category in the device manager, then select the external device from the disk drive list.
- Right-click on the external device and select the properties option from the menu. Now to uninstall the driver, click on the Uninstall button in the properties window. Disconnect your external hard drive from the PC and connect it again after a second. The driver will be installed automatically, and Reinstalling the driver might resolve the issue by now.
- If that doesn't resolve your issue, then in the Device Manager, right-click on your external hard drive again, select properties, click on the Update button, and select the option for search and install and continue. Make sure that you are connected to the internet; a window will show the progress of the update process. Once the driver has been updated, reboot your PC and check if the external hard drive is now showing up in your PC.
Format External Hard Drive
Sometimes in Windows, the external hard drive might get powered and recognized by the PC, but it won't show up in the File Explorer. In that case, we can assume it's not a driver issue, however, the reason for such a problem is still not apparent, but we can quickly fix it by formatting the external hard drive. Before you proceed to format your external hard drive, we suggest you backup your data to another PC.
- Firstly, connect the external hard drive to your Pc, press the Windows Key to bring the Start Menu, and then type Disk Management. The windows search will show you the result shortly, select and open the disk Management utility from the windows search.
- Select your external hard drive from the Disk list, check if the disk is online or offline if offline, right-click on the disk and select the Online option. It would mount the drive to your PC.
- You will have to format the disk. Since you can't do it from file explorer, do it using the disk management utility. Select the External drive, right-click on it and select the Format option, choose the type of format you want to perform, and continue.
- Once the disk is formatted, right-click on the external disk again and select the option New simple Volume, follow the wizard, assign a Letter to the volume. Disconnect and reconnect the external drive again and check if the issue is resolved or not. Alternatively, you could also clean the external drive if none of these methods is working for you.
- Open up the Command Prompt on your PC, type the command diskpart, type the command list disk to show a list of all the hard drives connected to your PC. Now, type the command select disk x and press enter. Instead of x, type the value of the disk you want to select.
- For example, if you're going to select disk 2, type select disk 2. Lastly, type the command clean and press enter to clean the external hard drive. This method should fix the issue.
