Pc Sees External Drive but Can't Read It
Backing upwards your data is important, and while storing information on the deject has become 2nd nature to most, at that place's however nothing like having everything saved on a physical device.
External drives are elementary: you lot plug them in, they appear on your estimator, and you can drag files correct on over. But if your drive isn't appearing when y'all plug it in, you lot might take a trouble. Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can take to remedy the situation.
Make Sure It's Plugged In and Powered On
Western Digital My Book
I know, I know, but hear me out: just because you plugged the bulldoze into your computer doesn't hateful it's necessarily receiving the ability it needs. While some drives can draw enough power from your estimator'south USB port, others—peculiarly larger drives not intended to be portable, like the Western Digital My Book—may require wall power to spin up.
If your drive came with an AC ability adapter but you haven't plugged it in, try hooking it up (and pressing the ability button, if there is ane). If it came with two USB plugs, make sure they'reboth plugged into your PC. With whatsoever luck, your drive will appear commonly in one case information technology gets the juice it needs.
Try Another USB Port (or Another PC)
(Photo: Cronislaw/Shutterstock)
If the drive however isn't working, unplug it and try a different USB port. It's possible the port in question is declining, or only beingness choosy with your specific bulldoze. If it's plugged into a USB 3.0 port, effort a USB 2.0 port. If information technology'south plugged into a USB hub, attempt plugging it directly into the PC instead. You might besides try it in another estimator.
If you lot're a multi-platform household, I'd especially recommend trying it in a figurer that runs another operating organization—eastward.g., if you lot can't get the drive showing up on a Windows PC, try plugging it into a Mac. It's possible the bulldoze just isn't formatted for the reckoner you're trying to use, and you'll demand to copy that data onto a drive that's formatted for cross-compatibility.
Update Your Drivers
Occasionally, Windows runs into driver issues that will render a device unrecognizable. Open up the Start menu, type "device director," and press Enter when the option appears. Expand the Disk Drives menu and the Universal Serial Bus menu to encounter if your external drive appears in either set. If you see an entry that looks similar your drive with a yellow exclamation mark, right-click on the device and cull Backdrop—y'all may find an error code y'all can Google. You can besides caput to the Driver tab and try updating or uninstalling the driver and rebooting your estimator.
Usually, hard drives only use Windows' built-in USB and difficult disk drivers, so this isn't probable to fix a temperamental drive, only it's worth a shot. (You tin besides try downloading drivers from the drive manufacturer's website, merely again, that's probably a long shot.) Check out our guide to updating your drivers for more than details on this procedure.
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Enable and Format the Bulldoze in Disk Management
If your drive is powered on but however isn't appearing in File Explorer, it's time to do some digging. Open the Start menu and blazon "disk management," and press Enter when theCreate and Format Hard disk Partitions choice appears. Once Disk Direction loads, roll down to encounter if your deejay appears in the list. If it does, brand sure it's online and formatted. If it's offline, correct-click the disk's name (east.g. "Disk 2") and choose Online.
If the disk hasn't been formatted (it'll say "Unallocated" nether a blackness bar), right-click it and cullNew Unproblematic Volume. This volition too solve the trouble if the drive is formatted for another operating system, as described higher up. Exist warned that formatting it volition erase any data on the drive, then only keep if y'all're certain y'all don't need annihilation from it.
Finally, if your bulldoze is online and formatted, but doesn't prove a drive alphabetic character next to its name, right-click the volume and chooseChange Drive Letter and Paths to add a drive letter. If you're lucky, i of these elementary steps should go your new drive upwardly and running.
Clean the Disk and Start From Scratch
In some more than specific cases, the drive will appear in Disk Management, but merely formatting the drive won't work. This is extremely common with SD cards formatted with Linux distributions for the Raspberry Pi, for case.
To regain your drive'due south total chapters, you'll need to run Windows' "clean" command, which will render the drive to a completely unformatted land. Once again, this will erase anything on information technology, so simply go along if you have no other options—and make extra sure yous're cleaning the correct disk, or you could lose a lot of data.
Open the Start menu, type "diskpart," and printing Enter to open up the run command. When the prompt appears, type "listing deejay" and printing Enter to see the disks plugged into your system. If you lot come across the drive in question appear—pay close attention to its size—brand a note of its name. We'll use "Disk 2" in this instance.
Blazon "select deejay ii" and printing Enter to select the disk you want to clean. Finally, type "make clean" and press Enter. This will erase the disk, at which point y'all can follow the above steps to format it from the Disk Management console.
Remove and Examination the Blank Bulldoze
Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA External Difficult Drive
If none of the to a higher place options work, you should remove the drive from its external enclosure and test the drive on its own. The components that convert that SATA drive into USB tin can fail, meaning the drive could be only fine if y'all connect it some other way.
If you have a desktop PC available, and the technological know-how, you can open information technology up and plug the bulldoze straight into your motherboard. If non, purchase a new external SATA-to-USB adapter dock or enclosure, plug your bare bulldoze into that, then connect that to your PC over USB.
If it works, so your former enclosure (or its power supply) may exist dead. If your drive however isn't recognized, you may have a dead drive. Contact the manufacturer to encounter if you're still nether warranty, and brand sure your other difficult drives are in working order.
Our Favorite External Difficult Drives
ADATA HD830 (Photo: Zlata Ivleva)
If your drive is across repair, it might exist time for a new one. Check out PCMag'south roundup of the all-time hard drives, wireless drives, and rugged drives. We also take roundups of the best drives for Mac.
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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-to-do-when-an-external-hard-drive-wont-show-up#:~:text=If%20the%20drive%20still%20isn,directly%20into%20the%20PC%20instead.
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