How to Fix External Drive Not Recognized Error in Windows

Written tutorial here: www.makeuseof.com/tag/externa...
**************************************************************
What’s MakeUseOf? Technology, simplified.
The MakeUseOf blog covers all types of technology, including advice for all the popular operating systems and gadgets on the market, and tips for your browsing, social media and gaming habits.
We’re also keen to help you personally make more of your time using technology, so we include a lot about personal productivity, finance, smart home tech, entertainment and more.
Plus, we’re always running giveaways and finding great deals we can share with you. So keep an eye out for them! Plenty of our readers have won iPhones, tablets and more through our giveaways.
So FOLLOW US on your favourite social media sites and get MakeUseOf.com into your RSS feeds. And come say hi in the comments of our posts anytime! We’d love to meet you!
Website: www.makeuseof.com/
RSS: feeds.feedburner.com/makeuseof
iTunes App Store: itunes.apple.com/us/app/makeu...
Google Play: play.google.com/store/apps/de...
Deals: deals.makeuseof.com/
Latest Giveaway: makeuseof.com/giveaway
Twitter: / makeuseof
Facebook: / makeuseof
Pinterest: / makeuseof
Instagram: / makeuseof
LinkedIn: / makeuseof.com
Google+: plus.google.com/+makeuseof

[@michaelsullivan9199]

Unplugged expander and went direct.....it worked, so simple, but I needed your video to realize it, THANK YOU!

[@Mad-Slick]

You are my freaking hero. Had an internal ssd inside an external enclosure and my laptop wouldn't assign it to a drive. Not tech savvy myself but "new simple volume" did everything I needed.

[@celimac88]

Thank you SO much!!! I had precious pictures of my pup who recently passed away in my old computer and could not get the external HD to format the traditional way. I was getting scared I wouldn't be able to transfer these pictures. I ran into your video and it WORKED!! I can't begin to express how grateful I am.

[@nickwalbridge3371]

I was at my wits end trying to get my pc to recognize my new external drive and you managed to sort if for me in a matter of seconds. Youre a hero my friend. You have earnt yourself a subscriber!

[@robertmckelvey1913]

Thank you for placing the information on you tube. I followed your instructions and it worked perfectly. I'm not that computer savvy so everyone should have no problem doing it.

[@mynewme8759]

I've watched a dozen videos trying to figure this out. But following your steps worked great!! Thank you very much for this!!

[@Tehgoat]

Yep, same here There's loads of vids with guys padding out the time and not actually addressing the problem

[@thanosztitan]

Same Here, Thanks for this!

[@prestonsmith2241]

Thank you! That was one of the most helpful videos I have found on KZbin best automechanic repair videos. LOL The most helpful video I found for reformatting my external hard drive.

[@Garjames1]

Thank you - Been having issues with a new DAS device I had for Xmas - This tutorial fixed it. Much appreciated :-)

[@ThexDynastxQueen]

Thanks so much for the easy to understand and straight forward help. Had a SDD in an enclosure that was recognized but not showing up on Win 7.

[@danielmontgomery7971]

This was so helpful! Great video that explains the process step-by-step! Thank you sir!

[@thomasparker683]

SUPER helpful this was causing me so much pain looking for an explaination. thanks!

[@ggonzalez435]

thank you for being easy to listen to and straight to the point.

[@longtaco]

THAN YOU!! I just bought an external storage enclosure, and started to panic when windows didn't detect it. You are my savior.

[@MusicTheoryInAMinute]

Is it possible my USB 3.0 to 2.5" SATA adapter is the problem? The computer recognizes that something is connected (windows makes the "connected" sound when I plug it in), and when I first connected the drive both my netbook and desktop tried to download drivers for the SSD, but failed to do so. Ever since, when I plug in the SSD (in either computer) nothing seems to register, other than the "ding dong" that Windows is connected. What do I do next to trouble shoot? Thanks for your help.

[@augustaggeboy137]

I searched way too long for this, but thank you!

[@Landops]

After going through the whole video and trying everything exactly according to your procedure...nothing worked, BUT I learned enough from this video to be able to go back and figure it out through a slightly different procedure and WALA! Thanks for the clear help that's hard to find these days.

[@veronicareyes1359]

voila*******************

[@d-o-n-u-t]

What is that slightly different procedure? I need it.

[@rpgkingwatson4842]

ThanksSSS A Million!!!. I've been having a hard time trying to format my Toshia Canvia on my windows pc. This worked great. Now i can save my longer Xbox One videos to my external hard drive.

[@tyrantam529]

Thanks for the video! Managed to get Windows to find my external after I changed the Drive letter, much appreciated!

[@guidedbylight]

Clear and simple instructions. Thank you so much 😊

[@SirEightySeven]

So much more helpful then any written tutorial, got it running half way thru your video ;]

[@adamrodgers1051]

Haha same :)

[@granthagan6865]

Thought it was the usb drivers were the problem but just changing the Drive number was all that was needed. Thank You...

[@andreiter]

Hi, thanks for the video. I have a question. I just recently bought a WD My Passport Wireless 4 tb external drive. I hooked it up to my older laptop, which may have a virus. I hooked up another drive to copy files over to the new one, but stopped after a few hours. When I hooked up my new drive to my virus-free, new laptop, it sees the drive in Windows Explorer. When I click on that drive, it says I need to format it. When I try to format it, it says Windows cannot perform that task. I feel the motor moving in the drive. I'm not convinced that it's a dead drive, perhaps there's a backdoor way of figuring this out. It also says that it's in a read-only mode

[@rainbowmerlin1]

great advice - really helped me sort out my problem - thanks a lot!

[@cullanpiano]

You are the best!!! This was so simple, after trying to follow instructions on websites which all want to sell you something to do what you showed me and fixed in 10 seconds. THANK YOU!

[@mrjohncraigjr]

Thanks, the only clear and precise video to get access to my thumb drive .... On KZbin..

[@sasukesak20]

i appreciate it, finally you could help, because shitty windows CS, only says troubleshoot and nothing happens; Youre a life saver, thank you!!!

[@morgondor]

Hey! I did this and my device is now recognized, but only the partition that wasn't recognized before (and I think I accidentally formated it, but not the whole thing). My external drive is 1TB and it only shows the 128gbs of space from this one partition (and it's as if there's no content in it), will I have to completely format the whole thing to be able to read it? I tried on a different computer and the same thing happened (just the partition shows).

[@artfromheart9095]

thumbs up and big thank you. It worked for me just as shown in tutorial.

[@shay8915]

Thank you sooo much yours was the only video after I watched 6 of them that actually made since and worked perfectly! Your great!!!

[@daveponder2754]

It made since? Sense when? MORON, larn houwe tu spel.

[@JAZZMAN72762]

Don't be mean!

[@JAZZMAN72762]

Life Saver, i have a 2 TB Toshiba external disk drive with all my music,pictures and data stored on it,my laptop would not recognize it,i went into disc management and i gave it a new drive letter and i am one happy camper thanks to this video,thanks so much.

[@maxwhodat5043]

Thank you. So refreshing to have an adult give you instructions instead of a techno track and blinking lights!!!!

[@nintendofanlp]

PERFECT!!!! Just what I needed!!!! Thank you!

[@Ardam20]

THAAAANK YOU so muuch, I've been looking for a solution for months :')

[@dawg7500]

.I have a fairly new WD Passport 2 TB. It suggested that I run a repair on the device and when I finished a repair it now loops over and over and runs a single beep code while running and constantly runs. There are no clicks so I know the drive is fine concerning the hardware. However, it will not show up in my computer or the disk management so I can't change the drive letter. However, it hows up the notification area to eject the device so I know it's showing up somewhere on the machine.

[@eleazar-reyagudo1400]

Thank you for this video. This surely formatted my SP Armor perfectly

[@cindylim57]

Thank you Sir. Your guidance saved my day!

[@nkululekoshelembe2578]

I was so frustrated when my pc wouldn't show my hdd bt the the first step on the video did the trick, THANKS A MILLION

[@daddyattitude]

Thanks so much. Forgot about this as I had not had to use this in like decades.

[@DangerManXX]

Straight up. Thumbs up. Solved a problem when I had been using this drive previously to store game files with my Xbox.

[@Ferno209]

Thank you so much! I was going through Google & so many forums on to just trying to get the original size of my External Hard Drive back but so many of them told me to download a 3rd Party Program & I got no where. The first two minutes of the video fixed my issue & I want to say thank you!

[@sacredxgeometry]

PROBLEM: I have a brand new, right-out-the-box WD My Passport made for WIndows, running a slightly old module of Windows 7 (but still should work with this external HDD). When I used the disk management service, the disk did not show up as a partition AT ALL, despite making the USB engagement noise when I plugged it in, and the fact that it's lit up and responsive. Again, the drive works, and it is compatible with my operating system, yet it neither shows up regularly, nor does it show up as a partition in the disk management window. So what do I do now?? PS: the drive is not dead since it works and hums and lights up. That is not the case. Also, under the directory management, I located an "unknown module" that was not part of the disk drop-down menu, but rather much further down the list, claiming that it needed updated drivers in order to work properly. However, when prompted to download said drivers automatically, no drivers were to be found, meaning whatever this is, must either not be the WD Passport, or that the Passport is in fact screwed. I know dozens of other people seem to be having this same issue, but lo-and-behold, nobody ever seems to have a solid answer or a fix for it.

[@bombtrak15]

After hours of frustration, I had to assign a drive letter. My seagate external worked for years, I was freaking out. I don't know why it happened but this fixed it, THANK YOU!

[@mjsoup29]

Good info and clear and to the point - thank you!

[@FeedScrn]

Thank You. I used your tip about going to disc management and assigning a letter.

[@Hellraiser187187]

Thank You! Very Helpful.

[@xjstalex1332]

Thanks a million man!!!!Saved me from a trip to the pc doctor.Keep up the good work!

[@tinotim]

Thank you very much, I was trying to access my external hard drive for days, your guidelines were what I needed. I am now able to use my device. Thank you one more time. I subscribed to your channel as a thank you.

[@tazflcn]

Vicente Monteiro did your data get erased?

[@SnarkierThan-U-R]

OK I did what you suggested and the items that appeared were the C and E drives and one that read system reserve, which I am assuming is the additional 500 Gb drive that I recently added so I labeled that drive: F So I think everything is Okay,?

[@iisamich]

no, its gonna die and youl lose all that information...... jk youre fine lol

[@crusadershuakbar]

recently i noticed a huge increse in used space on my W10 puter, i have tracked it down to system32 DriverStore it is a whopping 9.65 GB`s is this normal , can this be deleted ? sorry for being off topic

[@Greenbluesforever-yj3el]

I have 2 external Hard drives one is Seagate expansion 4 terra byte and the other is western digital my passport ultra 3 terrabyte, both are not working anymore in USB 3.0 but they work in USB 2.0, when I connect them in USB3.0 I hear a sound warning but is not working, I looked to disk management and they are not there, so what can I do ? They did work last year on USB 3.0 but I didn't use them for a long time, I looked to device manager and I have the last driver for USB3.0, when I made update driver they said thet the driver is updated, any adivice from you I thank you.

[@ts8538]

Thank you! You helped me get my external hard drive recognized.

[@outdoor-brothers]

Thank you so much for this video! I've tried everything that i could and nothing worked. So glad I stumbled on your video, my drive is mounted again and working normal now.

[@eyesgreen7109]

Clear, concise, and informative! WTFreindly Thank You. I did all your instructions which are great, I see my drive but it will not let me change the drive letter, any suggestions?

[@Xistaable]

Thank you so much for your instructions. It really helped to correct the problem. You are great...!!!

[@mopnem]

Very helpful and to the point. Thank you

[@zanasteer]

Just what I was looking for. Thanks!

[@hunterlevy8100]

My hard drive was set up on a Mac OS so I believe I need to change the formatting to fit the Windows OS I'm on, but when I get to that step, it won't allow me to click format. What should I do?

[@curtbeaird7026]

Awesome video. It worked. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

[@ahmadfarshoukh9776]

what should i do when the "change drive letter and path" is un-clickable ? i can see it but its off my drive is visible in the disk management window and the status is healthy .

[@bennedictbyy]

I have tried all the methods you had suggested in the video, but it seems that my SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD is not able to be recognized by my MSI GL62MVR 7RFX Laptop. I have tried the USB Type-A connector and connect to my laptop and it is recognized, just that when I try to connect the SSD directly to my laptop's USB Type-C port it does not show up in anyhow. The SSD is not dead due to that I am still able to connect it through the USB Type-A port. I tried connecting my iphone's USB Type-C cable to the laptop and it shows that my phone is charging. I tried connecting my GoPro Hero 8 Black to the laptop through SanDisk's USB Type-C cable and it shows that my GoPro is detected, thus I do not think it is the cable's issue at all. The most possible issue that I can now think of is that my laptop has not have the proper settings to connect to my SSD? I wish that I am able to connect my SSD through my USB Type-C port on my laptop. I am not really good at computers and I appreciate for those who are going to help in advance. Thank you =D

[@bando2145]

i have a double external that supports up to two, i tried both seperate and both together still doesnt show up on my pc or disk mananger and it works on other pcs

[@AsteckPlaysMC]

Well my External HDD Drive is showing up in Disk Management with unallocated memory however when I right click on the unallocated space as you have done, and there is a 'New Simple Volume' option that shows up however it is not highlighted and cannot be clicked on. Help please

[@silc9071]

Thank you, this worked great for me got my external drive fixed in no time.

[@muhammadzubairdawood3849]

Thank you verrry much. Hard drive is working once again. This video saved me money :-)

[@drsbaitso0]

Super helpful, thank you!

[@BryanMax]

Great Info, thanks for posting

[@jerrygmz]

Omg, you SAVED MY SANITY just now! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was literally about to return my WD 1TB SSD interntal drive (but have an enclosure so using it as an external) because my laptop was not recognizing it. Your recommendation to go to run> diskmgmt.msc saved me. I did not know that it would show up as "unallocated" to my PC. Then clicked on "new simple volume" and ran the wizard and after formatting it works like a charm! Great work and thank you again for your help!

[@electricfox37]

Thanks! This really helped my external drive to work again on my laptop!

[@FutureStoics]

Hi i plugged my wd external hard drive. The light blinks indicating its on but it doesnt show in disk management or anything. Please any help with this would be much appreciated.

[@crushedrocks9914]

hey, can u help out. i normally use 2tb seagate HD on my smart tv and it works great. then i got 4tb that i put on my smart tv and it works great. a friend of mine ask me to DL some stuff with his 2TB HD now i cant see the content when place on the smart tv but everytime i connect it to laptop its all there? do you know the reason why? thanks

[@DaintreeJD]

thank you, I assigned a new drive letter and it worked very much appreciated.

[@Marshi12]

adding a letter to drive worked for me for all external drives!! thank you

[@CoryPelizzari]

This worked for my external drive, but in the disk manager it showed as having two unallocated parts, one being 2TB and the other being 1.6TB (it's a 4TB drive). I could create a new simple volume with the 2TB section but I can't do the same with the 1.6TB section. Why is it locking me out of nearly half of my drive space?

[@GTXgb-gt8lz]

very in-depth. Thank you!

[@1jrma3]

How about when you right click on it every option is disable except for the properties and help

[@brummiestu8455]

Having same problem did U get it solved please many thanks

[@livingmonster1156]

Hello, I have the same problem with you. Have you fixed it already? Please help me.

[@1jrma3]

@@livingmonster1156 no sorry i just leave my external hard drive because i know its already old and maybe its already broken because i drop it few times before, just gonna buy new one soon

[@livingmonster1156]

@@1jrma3 Oh. Okay, thank you.

[@jeenmarasigan8790]

@@Victor_Victory Same with me Delete Volume and Help as the option left and everything is grayed out. Can somebody tell me what to do next? Or how to enable those other options?

[@angelcurcio6122]

Thank you so much for the great share, it got my issue fixed!!!

[@andrewburnett2581]

What is gpt protective partition? I can see it but i can't do anything you say i should do. Its from my playstation.

[@iGamerZ13]

Helped alot, thanks!

[@sinnertography9707]

Thank you so much. This video was a great help.

[@jorgefelicio1621]

Thank you very much for your help!

[@pavelth4290]

Ben Stegner, Thank you so much for the article!! and Thanks MUO!

[@zomtis]

Thank you! I've managed to get my external drive (wd hard disk) recognized! Oh, what a happiness after trying it with no success myself without any help…

[@humbertomaldonado5950]

the same hard drive issue and easy fix!

[@rickboehm7970]

Dude this video solved a huge problem is was having THANKS BUNCH

[@lordslaya]

THANK YOU. I just had to change the drive letter and it was instantly fixed.

[@isaacvrba]

Amazing Video. Fixed my problem in no time. Keep it up.

[@shivaansingla2958]

i dont wanna format my hard drive as i want to backup the data which is in it i connected the hard drive through a external case but my pc didnt gave sound of connected and didnt show it in my files but light is coming in the hard drive pls help me what should i do pls tell

[@kevandraper4829]

Thank you very much for this informative tutorial to help me and many more.

[@sir7544]

Thanks So Much! finally a tutorial that works, i subbed and liked.

[@FarroWife]

Hi can I get help? When I get to "new simple volume" it is grey, so I can not press anything. When I go to devmgmt.msc, it shows in disk drive but it shown now warning sign or problem. How do I get to my external drive? I am trying to clear out my drive so I can restart my old computer.

[@UnknownCreaturegr]

Thank you so much,it was really a helpful video.

[@zahnderofficial]

Does selecting "New Simple Volume" on unallocated space delete files saved on the external hard drive?

[@veshj3597]

I wanna know this as well

[@GeminiShazza]

Sorted out my new SATA drive with in 2 minutes of watching this. Wished I had seen this video days ago..... perfect thank you...

[@cleveranonym74]

Hello. Whenever I try to update the driver. It says "Error code:18, the windows detected a new driver, but an error occured... acces denied" or something very similar. I can't find a driver update to download from the devices website, I can't really find ANY kind of driver updates for this that is downloadable. I don't have a clue what to do I'm trying to make this sh*t work for the 5th hours now, but I can't fix the problem. Can you help me please?

[@vinny1010]

Not sure what's going on. My Toshiba Ext HDD works on my Win 7 Desktop but not on my Win 10 Toshiba Laptop. When I plug in another ext HDD (NTFS also), it picks that one on the laptop. I guess I have to continue troubleshooting. Nonetheless, thanks for the tips here, even though it didn't solve my issue.

[@AndNayNay]

Thanks, buddy! Better than the actual help page from the company!

[@bellajune320]

My External Drive is an Iomega, it is lighting up, my laptop is new (external drive is older but works), I went to the diskmgmt and see one Disc 0 there. I still can't get my computer to recognize anything. Right clicked the space. The options in the menu were "change" not the other thing he mentions. No idea now. I changed to Iomega, went to the windows start to look for it, still nothing under Iomega.

[@mommytribe]

so my drive isnt showing up on any of these things but when i plug it in the light turns on and i can feel it running, this started happening out of nowhere could it still be a dead drive

[@OGigiBunny]

Thank you for this!

[@Carlosmax29]

Great video with clear language. Thanks very much!

[@callum4487]

LEGEND the second method worked thank you i brought a internal ssd and a adapter i thought it was one of those that was causing the problem nope just needed a format thank you so much :)