external hard drive doesn't open to show files when plugged in

Hello paulaE.,

Good to see you in Microsoft Community.

Firstly, could you let me know the specific system version? Please check it (you can display it by pressing the Win key + R key, and typing "winver", then press Enter), and only send the relevant information without PII in the next reply.

Generally, for USB-connected external hard drives, you can check their status in This PC of in File Explorer and access their contents.

If possible, please do the following tests to further confirm whether it's the problem of the system itself or the problem of external hard drive.

• Connect the current external hard drive using a different USB port.
• Connect your external hard drive to another computer and see if it works.
• Connect a different external hard drive(or USB flash drive) to the current computer to see if it works.

Meanwhile, check to see if your external hard drive is in the disk item in Device Manager("Win" + "X" > "Device Manager") and has been correctly identified (its device icon vendor has a yellow exclamation mark by mistake).

If anything is unclear, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Best Regards, 

Mosken_L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hello,

I am having the same issue. I have a wd mybook 1230 4tb external hard drive. After the last update it is no longer showing up as an accessible drive. It is visible in the device manager but not in drive management. I have tried rolling back drivers and uninstalling in device manager. I have restarted the computer and installed drivers from the manufacturer website. I have tried picking my own driver and that is not working. The external hard drive works on my laptop and on my chrome book. I have looked into motherboard updates and that is also not the issue. Any advice or fixes that I might have missed?

Thank you,

Thanks for your reply.

Have you tried the troubleshooting steps in the image below? If so, please describe the results in detail or attach a screenshot of the results to your next response.

After attaching the disk, please perform the following troubleshooting steps:

• Take a screenshot of the disk item in Device Manager according to the steps in my last reply and attach it to your next reply.
• Then view the disk connection information in Disk Management("Win" + "X" > "Disk Management"), take a screenshot of it and attach it to the next reply.

Hello paulaE.,

I haven't received your message yet. If there's anything else I can do for you or something's unclear, don't hesitate to let me know.

Best Regards,

Mosken_L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

I haven't had a chance to work on this yet but I will get back to you with questions or to let you know what is going on. I know that when I attached the external drive nothing displayed as illustrated in your first illustration where it says "your connected external drive will display here".

How could that be. The only place where there was recognition was in the system tray that said something about recognizing that a device was plugged in to the computer. And that was it.

To answer your first question, I have version 21H2 and Build 19044.2251.

Hello paulaE.,

I haven't received your message yet. If there's anything else I can do for you or something's unclear, don't hesitate to let me know.

Best Regards,

Mosken_L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist