My external hard drive isnt showing in file explorer but is showing in disk management

Question

I'm not sure what to do as ive plugged it into multiple different usb ports

Answer 1

WARNING This will format and delete all the data on the hard drive. It basically resets the hard drive for use on windows. So if you don't care for data, go ahead.

Try

1. right clicking on the volume of the external HD (the part with the blue bar on it)
2. select 'delete volume', which will turn it from blue to black and it will be labelled 'Unallocated'
3. If you have multiple volumes, do this for each one, they will then combine into one volume afterwards
4. then right click on the volume again and select 'New Simple Volume', click through that setup, don't bother changing anything, and that may fix it (it did for me).

From what I can tell, the hard drive isn't set up to work with windows for whatever reason, which is why when you right click on it, all the options are greyed out. It needs to be wiped and reset for use on windows. My hard drive ended up like this after using it as a TV recorder. So maybe it happens when used for non windows devices.

Answer 2

Its not possible to change the disk letter

Answer 3

Hi FinGill, If your external hard drive is showing up in Disk Management but not in File Explorer, it's possible that your flash drive needs to be assigned a drive letter. Here's what did I do to solve this issue:

1. Open Disk Management by right-clicking on the Start button and selecting "Disk Management" from the menu.
2. Locate your external hard drive in the list of disks in the lower part of the Disk Management window. It should be labeled as "Disk X" where X is a number.
3. Right-click on the partition on the external hard drive that has no drive letter and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".
4. Click on the "Add" button and choose a drive letter from the list. You can use any available letter, but it's recommended to choose a letter towards the end of the alphabet (e.g., X, Y, or Z) to avoid conflicts with other drives.
5. Click "OK" to confirm the drive letter assignment.

After you assign a drive letter, the external hard drive should appear in File Explorer. If this doesn't work, there may be other issues with the drive, such as corruption or hardware failure. In that case, you may need to troubleshoot or repair the drive.

Answer 4

Hello, how are you?

Does this disk have any important files?

Was it used through the Windows Storage Spaces Manager for some reason?

Check if you can add a drive letter to that partition so it shows up in Windows Explorer.

In Disk Manager, right-click on that disk's partition and select "Change drive letter and path", click on the Add button and choose a letter, after that click on Ok.

Make sure the disk appears in Windows Explorer.

Answer 5

Probably this unit was used through the Windows Storage Spaces Manager as shown in the image.

I believe that the ideal is to format it to create a basic data partition and then be accessible again in Windows Explorer.