How to Fix External Drive Not Recognized Error in Windows

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  • čas přidán 23. 08. 2024

Komentáře • 675

  • @michaelsullivan9199
    @michaelsullivan9199 Před 5 lety +7

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

  • @Mad-Slick
    @Mad-Slick Před 4 lety +3

    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.

  • @maxwhodat5043
    @maxwhodat5043 Před 6 lety +11

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

  • @celimac88
    @celimac88 Před 2 lety

    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.

  • @longtaco
    @longtaco Před 2 lety

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

  • @mynewme8759
    @mynewme8759 Před 6 lety +19

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

    • @Tehgoat
      @Tehgoat Před 6 lety

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

    • @thanosztitan
      @thanosztitan Před 6 lety

      Same Here, Thanks for this!

  • @sasukesak20
    @sasukesak20 Před 3 lety +1

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

  • @prestonsmith2241
    @prestonsmith2241 Před 5 lety +3

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

  • @zomtis
    @zomtis Před 4 lety +6

    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…

  • @robertmckelvey1913
    @robertmckelvey1913 Před 5 lety +2

    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.

  • @granthagan6865
    @granthagan6865 Před 4 lety

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

  • @nickwalbridge3371
    @nickwalbridge3371 Před 4 lety

    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!

  • @JAZZMAN72762
    @JAZZMAN72762 Před 4 lety

    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.

  • @shay8915
    @shay8915 Před 6 lety +11

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

  • @cullanpiano
    @cullanpiano Před rokem

    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!

  • @nkululekoshelembe2578
    @nkululekoshelembe2578 Před 3 lety

    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

  • @rpgkingwatson4842
    @rpgkingwatson4842 Před 5 lety +1

    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.

  • @tinotim
    @tinotim Před 4 lety +1

    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
      @tazflcn Před 4 lety

      Vicente Monteiro did your data get erased?

  • @augustaggeboy137
    @augustaggeboy137 Před 4 lety +4

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

  • @mrjohncraigjr
    @mrjohncraigjr Před 6 lety

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

  • @Garjames1
    @Garjames1 Před 4 lety +2

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

  • @bombtrak15
    @bombtrak15 Před 6 lety

    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!

  • @ggonzalez435
    @ggonzalez435 Před 3 lety +2

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

  • @cindylim57
    @cindylim57 Před 4 lety +2

    Thank you Sir. Your guidance saved my day!

  • @thomasparker683
    @thomasparker683 Před 5 lety +1

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

  • @Ardam20
    @Ardam20 Před 4 lety +2

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

  • @SirEightySeven
    @SirEightySeven Před 4 lety +1

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

  • @Landops
    @Landops Před 7 lety +1

    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.

  • @ThexDynastxQueen
    @ThexDynastxQueen Před 3 lety +1

    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.

  • @guidedbylight
    @guidedbylight Před 2 lety +1

    Clear and simple instructions. Thank you so much 😊

  • @rainbowmerlin1
    @rainbowmerlin1 Před 5 lety +2

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

  • @SeanDIY
    @SeanDIY Před 5 lety +8

    Perfect. I tried to backup my old computer and my WD Hard Drive no longer had it's software on it. Doing the right click on the bottom worked. Sadly I lost everything, but pretty sure that was going to happen anyway.

    • @HighRollinMedia
      @HighRollinMedia Před 3 lety

      It requires a format sadly I figured that out the hard way just now

  • @danielmontgomery7971
    @danielmontgomery7971 Před 5 lety +1

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

  • @FeedScrn
    @FeedScrn Před rokem

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

  • @DangerManXX
    @DangerManXX Před 6 lety

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

  • @kevandraper4829
    @kevandraper4829 Před 3 lety +1

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

  • @Amynta5
    @Amynta5 Před 4 lety +2

    "If you don't have files saved on this external hard disk, go on and initialize it in MBR or GPT partition." This seemed like a very important step you did not discuss. I mean, no, you don't lose date in the initization, but then you have to format it for it to work, in which case you do lose data? I don't want to lose data, that's why I'm trying to view the disk?

  • @DardanelleNews
    @DardanelleNews Před 5 lety +3

    1 million percent an ACE sir! Been plugging drives up & watching videos....yours got me to a solution. LIKE!

  • @curtbeaird7026
    @curtbeaird7026 Před 5 lety +1

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

  • @1jrma3
    @1jrma3 Před 5 lety +26

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

    • @brummiestu8455
      @brummiestu8455 Před 5 lety

      Having same problem did U get it solved please many thanks

    • @livingmonster1156
      @livingmonster1156 Před 5 lety

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

    • @1jrma3
      @1jrma3 Před 5 lety

      @@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
      @livingmonster1156 Před 5 lety +2

      @@1jrma3 Oh. Okay, thank you.

    • @jeenmarasigan8790
      @jeenmarasigan8790 Před 5 lety

      @@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?

  • @artfromheart9095
    @artfromheart9095 Před 6 lety +2

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

  • @tyrantam529
    @tyrantam529 Před 6 lety

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

  • @pubudupeiris6773
    @pubudupeiris6773 Před 3 lety

    If your portable HDD suddenly shows up as RAW in disk management. Try running a check disk on the drive to repair it. open the command prompt and tyle "chkdsk /f : "

  • @tommytrautmann7054
    @tommytrautmann7054 Před 4 lety +1

    been trying to download ark and get it working for hours. you solved my problem in 2 minutes THANK YOU

  • @PenushLiskey
    @PenushLiskey Před 5 lety

    This only partially solved the problem I had with my external hard drive, so I had to find an alternative solution.
    I used my WD Elements external hard drive for recording TV program via my cable TV receiver. The disk had to be formatted by the receiver in order to be used for that purpose, which, normally, uses different file system than Windows.
    Using the instructions described above, I was able to reformat the drive using Disk Management (everything was fine with the driver). And I had to change (assign) a drive letter to the disk manually, because it didn't happen automatically. Only then was the disk visible in Windows Explorer, and that in it's full capacity. However, every time when I would disconnect the drive from the computer and reconnect it, it wouldn't be visible in Windows Explorer, so I had to assign a drive letter to the disk over again in Disk Management for it to be usable on the computer. In addition to that, the disc was absolutely unusable on my other, older computer (which uses Windows XP), because the process of formatting and assigning a drive letter wasn't possible at all with it's Disk Management. (And I do need the drive for both my computers.)
    In order to solve this I found online and downloaded a specialized software for formatting my brand of external hard drive (WD Elements). After formatting the drive with this program, the disk started working properly. After it was connected, it was automatically recognized, assigned a drive letter and usable on both of my computers. I found myself in a similar situation about a year ago with my Silicon Power USB Flash Drive and managed to recover it for Windows use with their USB flash drive recovery software.
    So, if someone finds themselves in a similar situation, try googling for the specialized software for your device (" 'device brand' formatting software or 'device brand' recovery tool etc.) Download this software from the manufacturer's web sites and avoid these programs from the third party web sites if possible, as you are in the risk of getting infected with a malware that way. (For WD Elements external hard drives the link is: support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=3868 )

  • @RitaPortugirl
    @RitaPortugirl Před 4 lety +1

    I went to disk management and changed the unit's letter, boom! it works!

  • @eyesgreen7109
    @eyesgreen7109 Před 3 lety

    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?

  • @Ferno209
    @Ferno209 Před 6 lety

    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!

  • @renekuhn2116
    @renekuhn2116 Před 6 lety +1

    I agree. nice and easy very clear spoken English thank you very much

  • @jerrygmz
    @jerrygmz Před 5 lety +1

    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!

  • @Marshi12
    @Marshi12 Před 5 lety

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

  • @daddyattitude
    @daddyattitude Před 5 lety

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

  • @nintendofanlp
    @nintendofanlp Před 6 lety +1

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

  • @electricfox37
    @electricfox37 Před 2 lety

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

  • @pavelth4290
    @pavelth4290 Před 3 lety

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

  • @eleazar-reyagudo1400
    @eleazar-reyagudo1400 Před 5 lety

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

  • @DianaRoseYanni
    @DianaRoseYanni Před 5 lety +96

    Im not seeing my usb on disk management... :( 😔

    • @Don_ECHOguy
      @Don_ECHOguy Před 5 lety

      @@iKingOf Same here does not show any other Drive other than my C: Drive for Windows... trying to access my Maxtor external HD with data on it!

    • @acirenaj4095
      @acirenaj4095 Před 5 lety +7

      same here and im using seagate barracuda .....wasted money

    • @alansaldivares
      @alansaldivares Před 5 lety +9

      Same issue here, I can't see my WD Elements anywhere

    • @cypherz6522
      @cypherz6522 Před 5 lety +3

      You can fix it

    • @KOALACLlMBS
      @KOALACLlMBS Před 5 lety +7

      henrich tan did u find a solution? I have a seagate 2tb and it won’t show up I’m hoping I didn’t waste $60 :(

  • @jasonl5948
    @jasonl5948 Před 5 lety

    great VID!!! finally a short and simple video that fix the issue. THANKS!!!!

  • @GeminiShazza
    @GeminiShazza Před 5 lety

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

  • @drsbaitso0
    @drsbaitso0 Před 3 lety +1

    Super helpful, thank you!

  • @rickboehm7970
    @rickboehm7970 Před 5 lety +1

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

  • @dawg7500
    @dawg7500 Před 5 lety +1

    .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.

  • @mopnem
    @mopnem Před 4 lety +1

    Very helpful and to the point. Thank you

  • @xjstalex1332
    @xjstalex1332 Před 6 lety

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

  • @BadKarma714
    @BadKarma714 Před 5 lety +6

    When I plug in my Drive it makes a noise when I plug it in but it doesn't show it on the drive list

  • @Carlosmax29
    @Carlosmax29 Před 2 lety

    Great video with clear language. Thanks very much!

  • @crozraven
    @crozraven Před 5 lety +1

    my problem is the external drive couldn't even initialized, I can't manually arrange paths & other things. How do I fix this??

  • @AndNayNay
    @AndNayNay Před 5 lety +1

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

  • @slowrest6041
    @slowrest6041 Před 3 lety +1

    this is it, no bullshit just direct to the point. Thanks!

  • @Xistaable
    @Xistaable Před 5 lety

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

  • @lordslaya
    @lordslaya Před 5 lety

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

  • @CraigLanceA
    @CraigLanceA Před 4 lety

    That fixed my new 8TB drive problem halfway into the video. Thanks!

  • @420protoman
    @420protoman Před 3 lety +1

    omgerrrdd you are da best dude lol i had a really expensive thunderbolt drive that would not recognize, but now it's working... thanks man

  • @callum4487
    @callum4487 Před 7 měsíci

    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 :)

  • @muhammadzubairdawood3849
    @muhammadzubairdawood3849 Před 6 lety +2

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

  • @notanothermica
    @notanothermica Před 4 lety

    Master!!!!! 1:50 Worked for me to solve my Lacie D2 Professional Not being Reconized

  • @gantu06
    @gantu06 Před 2 lety

    You are a lifesaver! Saver of storage lives!

  • @isaacvrba
    @isaacvrba Před 6 lety

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

  • @obsidiansea
    @obsidiansea Před 4 lety +1

    Disk management works fine with the external hard drive unplugged, but when I plug it in, it stalls out at "connecting to virtual disk service." So, I can never check whether it shows up. What do you suggest?

    • @obsidiansea
      @obsidiansea Před 4 lety

      Also, if I already have disk management open, and then I plug in the external hard drive, it makes disk management freeze up.

  • @GTXgb-gt8lz
    @GTXgb-gt8lz Před 3 lety

    very in-depth. Thank you!

  • @shivaansingla2958
    @shivaansingla2958 Před 3 lety +1

    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

  • @tokospeed1751
    @tokospeed1751 Před 5 lety +3

    OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH ( 1:44 ) I LOVE U MAN!!!!!!!!!!

  • @ts8538
    @ts8538 Před 5 lety

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

  • @nelsonsxs3515
    @nelsonsxs3515 Před 4 lety

    Omg i ve been looking to solve this for weeks!!! as soon as i assigned the letter it started working, dont understand the logic behind this but im soooo grateful, thank you so much!!! :D

  • @sinnertography9707
    @sinnertography9707 Před 6 lety

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

  • @uksuperrascal
    @uksuperrascal Před 4 lety +1

    Hi - My USB drive is not showing up on win 10 / This PC - Also not showing up under Disk Management. But is showing up under - Control Panel\System and Security\Storage space - Green Tick OK - Attached via USB 1.88 % used providing 465 GB pool capacity - Can you help

  • @Hellraiser187187
    @Hellraiser187187 Před 5 lety +1

    Thank You! Very Helpful.

  • @niihjulienne6353
    @niihjulienne6353 Před 5 lety

    Thanks a bunch. The uninstall option worked for me.

  • @outdoor-brothers
    @outdoor-brothers Před 6 lety

    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.

  • @265petsar
    @265petsar Před 4 lety +1

    Thank You, great information

  • @behnam.ghasemi
    @behnam.ghasemi Před rokem

    Thank you so much. that was very helpful for me to format my ADATA710 HDD

  • @nicky5185
    @nicky5185 Před rokem

    Thanks for this. My problem was, external disk was in a LINUX partition, not Windows partition. Plugged it into a Linux laptop, and presto.

  • @zanasteer
    @zanasteer Před 6 lety

    Just what I was looking for. Thanks!

  • @CoryPelizzari
    @CoryPelizzari Před 4 lety

    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?

  • @SnarkierThan-U-R
    @SnarkierThan-U-R Před 5 lety +2

    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
      @iisamich Před 5 lety

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

  • @landadvisor1546
    @landadvisor1546 Před 6 lety +1

    Me too!!! I've watched many videos trying to figure this out. But following your steps worked great!! Thank you very much for this!! CLA

  • @mSKa316
    @mSKa316 Před 3 lety +1

    PLEASE HELP! Mine is a regular 7200 rpm Seagete Barracuda 1tb hdd, and it doesnt just work, but when i plugged it into my dads computer, it worked perfectly...
    What Could Be The Cause Of This Issue ??
    Please Someone REPLY!!

  • @DaintreeJD
    @DaintreeJD Před 4 lety

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

  • @liammcguire6645
    @liammcguire6645 Před 4 lety +3

    Youre a god send! Thank you so much!!!!

  • @rossw7979
    @rossw7979 Před 4 lety +3

    You're a wizard Harry : )