It can create a new partition within the device, if there is unallocated space and assign it a new letter to enable access. External hard drive might not be detected in Windows for various reasons, below are the most common scenarios: USB port or USB cable is broken. Now turn off the PC for at least 1 minute. the problem with your external Hard Drive. This fix usually solves the error half of the time. This is true, whether it be PATA, SATA, SCSI, IDE, USB, internal, or external hard disk drive (HDD). Also not reflected in device manager. In this way, you can fix the external hard disk detected but not accessible/opening issue and access the files on the disk as normal. Safely remove the external hard drive from your computer. The other possibility is that the spindle motor itself is failing and can no longer … You are also required to press the eject button before removing the disk from the computer. You can follow our complete guide to learn the reason behind your hard disk inaccessibility, and we will also guide you through the process of how to repair that external hard drive and recover the erased data along the way too. Now turn off the PC for at least 1 minute. Let’s take into consideration one by one.Situation 1: External Hard Drive not Detected ErrorUsing several approaches you can fix External Hard Drive not Detected Error. The hard drive had been given by a friend (and contained graduation photos and videos) who was a Mac user. external hard disk like SSD not detected on Windows, initialize and reformat external hard drives in Windows, recover lost data from the dead external hard drive. The next thing is to check whether Windows detects the hard disk. Does not have any idea how to do it? All drivers are updated. The results will be displayed, which you will be able to view them from the File Type and File Path section. The last attempt is to reformat the drive. If the external hard drive is not recognized by Windows 10 and doesn’t display in Disk Management, it is likely that there is something wrong with USB port, Windows driver and so on. Restarting is perhaps the most natural solution to our hard drive being unresponsive. Three possible culprits can stop your hard disk drive’s platters from spinning: 1. If you select the solution of formatting the external drive, then it will erase all the data. Thank you for the help. If the External Hard Drive if it is not recognized, showing up, detected, working or accessible even after plugging it to Windows 10/8/7, see this fix. At times the file structure or the systems get out of sorts causing the operating system not to recognize the drive. Hello Mohamed, Feel bad … Click on Troubleshoot and find Hardware and Devices. Locate the Power icon and select "Restart". Repair the System Built-in Drivers. So you should keep an eye on any security updates and different driver versions that pop up. Solution 1. If your hard drive does not show in Disk Management, you should check if it can be detected in BIOS (Basic Input / Output System). You will need an adapter if your computer has a USB-C port. Step 1. If you have tried the solutions above, all your data stored on the external hard drive is erased. It … Basic reasons why the external hard drive is not responding. The LED indicator blinks whenever its connected with the computer, but Not showing up anything on my PC or disk management Read the following tutorial. Almost all the external hard drives are plug-and-play. It is also important that you check the health of your external storage device regularly by scanning it through the CHKDSK utility. Reconnect the power cord to the system itself. If the drive is not receiving power or receiving an incorrect level of power, it will not spin up.To check to see if this is the cause of the BIOS not detecting the hard drive, follow these steps: Power off the computer Open the computer case and remove the data cable from the hard drive. It is available on both macOS and Windows PC. Applies to: Fix disk shows as "New Volume" with no drive letter that causes external hard drive not responding. A scan completion pop up will appear on the screen with a beep tone. With drivers, it may lead to further complication. If you connect a Mac-formatted drive to your Windows computer, you'll be informed that "You need to formatted the disk in drive *: before you can use it" This error message appears because Windows doesn't understand Apple file system, including HFS+ and the latest APFS. The troubleshooter will start scanning for irregularities in the PC. I have downloaded the WD life diagnostics tool but it shows my disk is not available. Presence of bad sectors caused by inappropriately removing the drive from PC without following the removal protocol. Otherwise, it will notify you that "The best drivers for your device is already installed". Plugged the external hard drive into an older laptop running windows 7 and this machine recognized it in disk management. For this, you can use External Hard Drive Recovery Tool which is suitable and perfect hard drive data recovery. To solve the problem external hard drive not showing up in Disk Management on Windows 10, you have to take specific steps based on different situations. Once Disk Management loads, scroll down to see if your disk … I have tried changing the SATA ports and cables and even tried connecting it through external … Hard drive spins up then stops spinning - posted in External Hardware: I have two external Seagate drives. Close. Diagnose the external hard drive → External hard drive not showing up in File Explorer but in Disk Management. The motor is working but the hard drive is not detected in any computer or laptop. Just as in cases where the disks are not spinning at all, one possibility is that the printed control board is failing and cannot send enough power to the spindle motor, which spins the drive’s hard disk platters. To recover all of your files, you are required to follow our three-step process to recover deleted files after installing the app. Then reconnect the external hard drive and turn on … Hard drive spins up then stops spinning - posted in External Hardware: I have two external Seagate drives. After closing my media player I saw that my hard drive seemed to have been disconnected (It did not show up in "My Computer". Double-click "Disk drives" to expand the category. That's fine, you should back up your important data on another storage device and then reformat it to exFAT or FAT32 on Mac. After restart , hard disk not detected by windows but its spinning up normally , what happened? Thus, plug in your hard drive into another Port to identify the exact cause and confirm whether a problem e… When you plug in your external hard disk to your computer, you may find that your hard drive is detected by the operating system, but you're not able to open. Let's take a look at how to diagnose undetected external hard drives in Windows. After checking the ON/OFF switch, you can proceed further to perform other solutions to fix the inaccessibility problem. Some older computers come with USB version 2.0 ports from which an … If you want to solve your external hard drive not recognized on Windows 7, Windows 10 efficiently, it is advised that you conduct a problem diagnosis. The hard drive has very important documents. Open the Start menu, type "Device Manager," and press Enter when the option appears. Recoverit allows users to Preview the recovered files, which will enable you to check the authenticity of the erased data. … If it does, the power supply is not an issue at hand. Disconnect the power cord from the system. Then not responding external hard drive can be read and detected now. In case it appears initially but later disappears, then repeat the step above, and go to Disk Management - Change Drive Letter -- Reconnect it. If the hard drive has more than one partition or the partitions are not showing up, try using Hard Disk Drive to scan the entire disk. To solve the external hard drive not recognized program on computer, you can use the inbuilt Disk Management tool to find it out and get it to be recognized. Follow our solution below: You can fix specific problems through the Windows troubleshoot utility, which automates the diagnosis and repairs the problem with your computer system. When you encounter hard drive click of death on the external drive that can be found in Windows Disk Management, you can easily recover data from it with MiniTool Power Data Recovery. views TS shaun786: Jul 17 2015, 01:18 AM, updated 5y ago. Plugged the external hard drive into an older laptop running windows 7 and this machine recognized it in disk management. If you have tried all these solutions above, but you still cannot access the external hard drive. Remove the power cable when the hard disk is not detected, or the hard disk you are trying to fix. Select the "Location" of your external hard drive. Besides, it also recovers data from corrupted USB drives, Pen drives, SD cards, memory cards, CF cards and much more external storage devices on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP and Windows Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003. Such a problem can occur due to multiple factors, and if you're worried that you won't be able to reaccess the drive and thinking "how to fix the external hard drive, not opening?" Before using the check disk command, it is important to know what type of functions it performs to fix specific disk-related problems. After restarting the system, try plugging the device into the PC to review the issue at hand. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. To check this issue, you can unplug the drive from its current USB port and try plugging it into another port on your computer. Hard drives associated with computers using what is called file systems, which you can get to know about in our how to format the external hard drive that is not recognized guide. Open Device Manager on your computer by entering the name in the search bar. external HD not spinning up/not being recognized - posted in External Hardware: I hope someone can help! It should be essential when you want to quickly and easily expand the storage space of your computer as well as back up your important music, photos and files. The hard disk doesn't have a drive letter or the drive letter conflicts with other disks. Regular HDD is in a HDD caddy that I used to replace my DVD-drive. Note: If you fails to find the desired files, you can click on the "Back" button, select the drive again and then tick "Deep scan" at the bottom. The light is blinking because the controller board is talking to the motherboard disk access chips successfully. Recoverit supports all types of File system formats like exFAT, FAT32, HFS, NTFS. HDD in the caddy shows up in device management as an other device, not as a hard drive and it's not showing up in the disk management. Attention: This method will erase the data on your external hard drive as you need to format it to get it to be recognized. I have tried changing the SATA ports and cables and even tried connecting it through external SATA port but I have been unsuccessful. There are different brands of external hard drives, such as Seagate, WD, Toshiba and Lacie. The PC would not let you assign a drive letter for it - would only let you "delete volume". The system will start searching for your diver software, you can also uninstall the device and reinstall it, using the same utility. So, in this article, we will share the causes and solutions to external hard drive not detected problem. I was copying file from my internal hard disk to another internal hard disk , suddenly my pc hangs and restart automatically. So, it's important to know how to use it in the right way. c. Press 'F10' to save the BIOS setting, and click [OK] to reboot. Once your hard disk doesn't show up in your … Printed control board (PCB) Normally, electricity flows through the circuit board on your hard drive and into the drive’s chassis to power the spindle motor, setting the platter in motion. If you missed the pop-ups or ignored them, it's not a big deal. If you're connecting a new drive, it'll probably look as if it wasn't … The hard drive driver is corrupted or outdated. It is not there in disk management but I can able to see the drive in control panel. The screenshot of DISKMGMT in that other thread showed no file system at all on the partition of that external hard drive. Case 4: If the drive is offline, set online. Whenever you face with frozen screens, crashing programs or inaccessible removable disks, you can save anything you are working on and restart your computer before you freak out. Case 1: If the drive is unallocated in Disk Management, create a new volume, Case 2: If the drive has no drive letter, change the drive letter and paths. Assign a letter to the drive and click on Next. The hard disk doesn't have a drive letter or the drive letter conflicts with other disks. The casual and repeated use of the power cable may cause it to lose its functionality. Why is my external hard drive detected but cannot open? Follow our guide to use the windows troubleshoot utility, which may fix the hard drive inaccessibility issue. Right-click the Start button on the desktop to open Quick Access Menu and then choose "Disk Management". 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