Important - Make sure to expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers section so you can see entries there as well. Within Device Manager look for any entries called unknown device, other device, or mass storage device with a yellow ! icon.
If the drive was not detected under Disk Drives then check the following: If other drives have a letter but the external is missing then you can right-click and select change drive letter or path. If it is missing, verify that other drives have a letter. Drive letter - Verify that the drive has a drive letter.Capacity - Check to see if the drive is correct, for example if you have a 1TB drive it should say 931GB.You can format the drive if you don’t need the data. NTFS - If NTFS is missing then the file system has become corrupted.If the drive is formatted correctly for Windows you should see the following information: WARNING: Formatting erases all data on the drive.
Read our How To Format Your Drive article for instructions on the process. If you do not need any data from the drive, you should be able to reformat the drive to restore accessibility. If the drive shows as RAW or Unallocated and you have already tried a different port, cable, and computer but you need the data, then you will want to consider data recovery. See this article for more detailed information - One Touch with Hub uninitialized and unallocated Note For One Touch with Hub Drives: For security enabled One Touch with Hub drives, locked drives will show as uninitialized and unallocated until unlocked. Once you have located the drive you will want to look for the following:ĭoes it show RAW or Unallocated? Either of these indicates a possible issue with the drive’s formatting.
If using a surge protector or power strip, plug the power adapter directly into the wall outlet instead.(Desktop Drives).No light could indicate the power adapter is not connected to power. Desktop Drives typically require a power adapter. Try using the drive on a different computer.If possible, try using a different cable.Try connecting the drive to a different port on the computer.If your external hard drive is not accessible please try these basic troubleshooting steps first. The external hard drive itself, under normal circumstances, should be detected by your operating system, without the need of drivers, software, or firmware updates.
While it is possible that your external hard drive may have come with bundled software that may be incompatible with newer operating systems, this is typically just ‘back up’ software, and the drive is not dependent on that software to function. There are several reasons why an external hard drive may not be accessible or detected when you connect it to your computer.