External Usb Hard Drive Not Detected

External hard drive sometimes may not be recognized by the Windows OS and this is a very common problem that many Windows users face. Actually, when you connect a portable hard drive in USB 3.0 port of Windows computer, Windows does not show any drive in the Windows Explorer section.

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• Windows 10 Does Not See External Drive

Many users complained that their external hard drives are connected but not showing on computer or File Explorer the Windows 10/8/7. Some reported that the USB or external hard drive is not showing up on My Computer or File Explorer but showing in Disk Management. Others said that external hard drive shows in device manager but not disk management. To fix these external hard drive issues, this troubleshooting post will be helpful for you.

Case 1: External hard drive shows up in disk management but not file explorer

You may experience that your USB or external drive has been connected to the computer, but it is not showing in File Explorer or My Computer, but shows in Disk Management instead. Under this situation, it will be regarded as an unknown disk and shows the capacity to be 2048 GB in the Disk Management. To fix the problem, please try following methods.

Tip: If your external hard drive shows in device manager but not disk management, you can directly move to the case 2.

• The Universal Serial Bus (USB) connects billions of keyboards, mice, joysticks, printers, external hard drives and other peripherals to roughly 1.5bn personal computers, and more than 3bn mobile.
• Fix external hard disk detected but not accessible/opening issue? To fix this issue, you may try more than one solutions. Let's take a look at how to diagnose undetected external hard drives in Windows. Solution 1: Make sure your external hard drive is power on. The first and obvious step is to check whether the external hard drive is spinning.

1. Assign a Drive Letter to the USB/Hard Drive

Sometimes, the drive might not have been assigned a drive letter by Windows so that USB or external hard drive cannot show on File Explorer but in Disk Management. In this case, you can try to assign a drive letter to the USB or external hard drive in Disk Management.

STEP 1. Navigate to 'Control Panel'> 'System and Security'> 'Administrative Tools'.

STEP 2. Choose 'Computer Management'. Provide an administrative passcode, if asked.

STEP 3. In Disk Management, find out the unlabeled hard drive and right-click on it to choose 'Change drive letter and paths.'

STEP 4. Click 'Add'> 'OK' to pick out the available drive letter.

STEP 5. If the drive letter does not show on the drive, check if the drive is offline. If it is, right-click the disk number and select Online. And then, follow the instructions again.

NOTE:

If you can't finish the operation in Disk Management, you are able to run 'cmd' to change or assign the drive letter.

• Open Command Prompt. (CMD) and type 'diskpart'.

• At the DISKPART prompt, enter 'list volume'. ( mark down the number of the simple volume whose drive letter you want to assign)

• At the DISKPART prompt, enter 'select volume n[volume's number]' (Select the volume whose drive letter you want to assign)

• At the DISKPART prompt, enter 'assign letter=N' (N stands for the drive letter you want to assign)

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2. Make sure that the hard drive is enabled and online

Make sure the hard drive is enabled

If the drive has been disabled, the disk will be invisible in File Explorer. When the disk is disabled, follow the steps below to Enable it:

STEP 1. Press 'Windows'+ 'R' on the keyboard to activate run box.

STEP 2. Type 'devmgmt.msc' on the run box to open 'Device Manager'.

STEP 3. If a drive is disabled, the disk drive will be marked with a down arrow. Locate the hard drive you want to enable.

STEP 4. Right-click on it and choose 'Properties'> 'View'tab.

STEP 5. Click on 'Enable Device' button > 'OK'.

STEP 6. After that, check if the down arrow is still there.

Make sure that the drive is online

Sometimes, an external hard drive connected but not showing because the drive is offline. To be detected by Windows, you can follow steps below to check the current status of the disk.

• Go to 'Control Panel'> 'System and Security'> 'Administrative Tools'.

• Choose 'Computer Management', and locate your disk in 'Disk Management'.

• Right-click on it and select 'Online'.

3. Update drivers for USB or external hard drive

When your USB/external drive does not show on file explorer on Windows 10/8/7, you can try to update its driver in Device Manager. As we know, an update is created to fix some glitches for the previous version so as to make USB or external drive showing on My computer again.

STEP 1. Press 'Windows'key + 'R'and enter 'devmgmt.msc' on the run box.

STEP 2. Open 'Device Manager'> Click the 'Scan for hardware changes' icon on the menu.

STEP 3. Right-click on the inaccessible USB/external hard drive and choose 'Update Driver Software.'.

STEP 4. After the update is finished, restart your PC and check if the device is accessible.

4. Recover data from hard drive that is not showing

When external hard drive issue occurs, an external hard drive is not showing files though they still exist. If any important data is in the USB/external hard drive when external hard drive shows up in Disk Management but not File Explorer, you can employ data recovery to retrieve your data before formatting it. Here we highly recommend you FonePaw Data Recovery which is capable of recovering data from USB/ external hard drive, supporting Window 10/8/7. To recover data from hard drive, you just need few simple steps.

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STEP 1. Run FonePaw Data Recovery, and then, select the file types you need.

STEP 2. Next, click on 'Scan' button after selecting your USB/external drive.

STEP 3. Select out the files you want to recover.

STEP 4. Finally, click on 'Recover' button to finish data recovery.

STEP 5. After that, you can keep on formatting your inaccessible USB/external hard drive.

Case 2: External hard drive shows up in Device Manager but not Disk Management or File Explorer

External Usb Hard Drive Not Detected

Unlike case 1, USB or external hard drive sometimes is invisible in File Explorer or Disk Management, but it can be detected in Device Manager, for example, an external HDD won't show up in explorer, but it shows in Device Manager. To fix the issue, several methods can be listed below.

1. Make sure the USB or external hard drive is available. If it is not showing up in Disk Management or File Explorer, you can try to plug it into other USB port of your computer. What's more, you can connect your external drive to other computers to check if it works.

2. Partition and format the external hard drive.

• Go to 'Computer Management'. > Right-click on black bar of the invisible drive to choose 'New Partition.'> Follow the instruction to finish the Partition.

• Right-click on the drive and select 'Format'.

3. Disable and re-enable the USB controller.

• Navigate to 'Device Manager'. > Find 'Unknown USB Device' and right-click on it. > Choose 'Uninstall'.

• After restarting your PC, enable the USB controller again.

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Now, your issue - external hard drive not showing Windows 10/8/7 has been resolved. To manage the data on USB/external hard drive, read here:

Are you unable to access your Seagate external hard drive when connected to your PC? Well, I must say that you have come to the exact right webpage because here you will definitely be going to know how to fixSeagate external hard drivenot detected error.

Also, you will get to know how to recover data from Seagate external hard drive not recognized, if the data gets deleted while fixing this error.

But first, let's get started with its fixes…

How To Fix Seagate External Hard Drive Not Recognized or Not Detected Error

You can try the below solutions to fixSeagate external hard drive unrecognized or undetectable error. These solutions will definitely help you resolve this error now.

Important Note: The below-mentioned solutions are not only applicable to fix Seagate external hard drive driver not recognized the problem but also to fix Seagate external hard drive light not blinking and therefore it is not detecting. Jw library windows 8.

Besides that, these solutions can also be used to fix all other external hard drives such as Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, LaCie, Thunderbolt, eSATA, Firewire, etc that does not get recognized by your Windows computer. Adobe premiere monthly subscription.

Solution #1: Connect External Hard Drive To Another PC or Mac

Sometimes, the USB port of your system does not work properly or the USB port itself is damaged.

So, if you notice that external hard drive light is blinking but it is not getting read by the system, then you can try to connect the hard drive to another system and check if it is getting recognized. Or you can try another USB port to connect the drive to your PC.

You can also try to reboot the PC and retry to connect your hard drive once again.

If it works – it is good. If it does not, then follow the next solution.

Solution #2: Scan External Hard Drive With Virus Cleaner/Anti-Virus Software

If you are confident enough that the virus has infected your Seagate external hard drive and because of this reason, the drive is not getting readable by the system, then you can use Virus Cleaner or Anti-virus software. This software will help you to scan and remove all viruses from your hard drive and PC. After this, you can format the hard drive to make it recognize.

Note: Apply this solution only when you are confident that virus infection has made your external hard drive unrecognizable, or else skip this solution.

Solution #3: Unhide Hidden Devices To Make Seagate External HDD To Get Recognized

• On your PC click Start. In search address bar type devmgmt.mscand hit Enter.

• Hover mouse to View and select Show hidden devices.
• Next, expand all notes just by clicking on the + (plus) symbol.
• If you find any greyed entries, then right-click on it and select Uninstall.
• Now Reboot PC and try to connect external hard drive.

Solution #4: Uninstall Hard Drive Driver to Solve External Hard Drive Undetectable Error

• On your PC, click Start. In search address bar type devmgmt.mscand hit Enter.
• This will open Device Manager. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers and check if any device is showing as unrecognized.

• If it shows unrecognized, then delete or uninstall the drive by going to the driver tab and then check whether external hard drive displays up in My Computer or not.

• If it doesn't display up, then restart or reboot your PC. If external hard drive shows but later it gets disappeared, then open Disk Management and change the name of your external hard drive only.

This will solve all the problems.

Solution #5: Switch ON Root Hub to Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognized Issue

• On your PC, click Start. In search address bar type devmgmt.mscand hit Enter.
• This will open Device Manager. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. Right-click on USB Root Hub > Properties > Power Management > uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

• Repeat the process for all USB Root Hub shown in the list and then restart/reboot system and try to connect external hard drive.

Solution #6: Make Changes In Registry To Fix Seagate External Hard Drive Not Recognized Error

Note: Follow this solution very carefully.

• On your PC click Start and in search address bar type regedt32 and then click on Yes.

• After this backup your registry. Go to File>Export.
• On the left panel go to
  

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

• On the right panel, if you see any lowerfilters or upperfilters, then delete
• After this re-try to connect external hard drive again.

Solution #7: Format And Repartition Seagate External Hard Drive

Another solution you can try is to format and repartition the Seagate external hard drive. It is possible to format this hard drive using the drive management or any third-party tool. But, here, you can try these below steps to format and repartition Seagate external hard drive in Disk Management:

• First of all, you have to go to Start menu on your Windows PC ad then type there ‘CMD'.
• Now, you have to make a right click on Command Prompt and then simply select Run as administrator and click there Yes to confirm if it prompts.
• Now, type the below commands one after another and then hit Enter key after each command you type in the command prompt window:

diskpart
list disk
select disk # (replace # with the letter of the USB drive)
clean

• Next, you have to go to Start menu and then simply type there ‘create and format disk partitions' and then open it.
• Now, you have to choose there ‘New Simple Volume….'

• Now, in the next step, you have to follow the steps by step instructions directed to finish the creation. Next, you will be prompted to format the external hard drive to access it.

After performing the above steps, your Seagate hard drive not recognized will be easily fixed.

Recover Data From Unrecognized or Undetectable Seagate External Hard Drive

Many people have asked – how to recover data from Seagate external hard disk which is not detecting? So, when your Seagate external hard drive is not recognized by Windows or Mac computer, then the first thing that will worry you – is the data stored within the hard drive.

So, the first precaution you must take is to restore data from Seagate external hard drive. For this, you can use External Hard Drive Recovery Tool which is suitable and perfect hard drive data recovery. It will allow you to restore almost all file formats of photos, videos and audio files from your Seagate external hard drive on Windows or Mac.

This recovery software for external HDD can easily detect your unrecognized external hard drive and deeply scan and extract digital media files. These media files recovery include pictures, photos, videos, movies, music, songs and other audio files from any external hard drives, including Seagate external HDD as well.

External Hard Drive Not Detected As Usb

Important Note:As soon as you notice that your Seagate external hard drive is not recognized on your Windows or Mac computer, then you must stop using it and do not add any new data on it. Because adding new data will overwrite the existing data and you will lose the chance for recovering files from it. After this, immediately apply the External Hard Drive Recovery Tool, scan it and recover digital media files from it.

* Free version of the program only scans and previews recoverable objects.

Here, you can go through the step by step guide to recover deleted data from Seagate external hard drive in just three simple steps.

What Is External Hard Drive

In the era of today's world, the external hard drive has major benefits in storing huge amount of data and hence many people would like to buy an external hard drive with a USB port so that they can store lots of data with ease.

Among several external hard drives, Seagate external hard drive is mostly used by a large number of people all across the world, because of its good performance.

However, sometimes when you plug Seagate external hard drive into the USB port of PC or Mac then the hard drive is not detected by the system. If your Seagate external hard drive is brand new, then you can directly go to manufactures to deal with the problem or you can replace it with another hard drive.

Reasons: Why Seagate Hard Drive Not Detected Error Occurs?

There could be several reasons that can make your Seagate hard drive not detected. Some of the common reasons are mentioned below:

• The hard drive might have got damaged
• The USB port of a PC or Mac computer might be damaged or Seagate external hard drive not working
• Maybe your external hard drive has got infected with virus or malware
• Hard drive driver installed on your system might have been outdated
• Hard drive failure or maybe hard drive contains bad sector or it has gone bad or corrupt itself

These are some common problems. So, what you can do to fix these problems when your Seagate hard disk not detected or not recognized?

Just Relax! Below you will find the solutions that will help you to effectively fix these problems and makes your Seagate external hard re-usable once again.

Related External Hard Drive Issues And Solutions

Why Is My External Hard Drive Not Showing Up?

Many people have also asked that – why is my external hard drive not showing up? Serial de adobe premiere pro cs5 para mac.

Well, the reasons could be various such as in some cases when you try to connect your drive to PC with a USB port you will find that hard drive is not detected. The issues could be caused by partition issue on your external hard drive, wrong file system usage, driver issues, dead USB ports or other issues. In worst situations, the drive itself might be simply dead.

External Usb Hard Drive Not Detected Windows 7

So, how to make external hard drive to show up? Below follow the steps to do so:

• Press Windows Key + R to open RUN dialogue box.
• In RUN Box type diskmgmt.msc and hit ENTER.
• Here, you can see the external hard drive listed in the Disk Management Window, even if it doesn't show up in My Computer since it doesn't contain any partitions, it should show up here.

How Do I Fix My External Hard Drive Without Formatting?

There are many people out there asking for a solution – how do I fix my external hard drive without formatting?

Well, you can follow the above-motioned solutions 1- 6, in order to fix external hard drive issues without formatting. However, if you are looking to format the external hard drive but getting the not formatted error then learn here – How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Formatted Error.

If you are looking to recover inaccessible data from drive without formatting it then please visit – How To Recover Files From USB Drive Without Formatting It?

Conclusion

Here I have provided several solutions and I am sure that it will help you to fix Seagate external hard drive not detected or not recognized error.

Computer Not Detecting External Drive

However, it is also important to recover digital media files from the external hard drive if the data has been deleted from it unintentionally.

You can try External Hard Drive Recovery Tool to do so and keep safe your data then by keeping a regular backup.

So, just try all the solutions mentioned here and use your external hard drive without any interruption.

Windows 10 Does Not See External Drive

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Alex is an expert technical writer with 7+ years of experience. His in-depth knowledge about data recovery and fascination to explore new DIY tools & technologies have helped many. Alex has a great interest in photography and loves to share photography tips and tricks with others.

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