Sara

5days

My PC Won’t Recognize My External Hard Drive

I plugged in my external hard drive, but it doesn’t show up in File Explorer. The drive’s light is on, and I hear it spinning, but I can’t access it. What could be the problem, and how can I fix it?

Comments

James

If it’s still not working, it might need reformatting. Be careful, though—this will erase everything on it. In Disk Management, right-click the drive and choose 'Format.' If you need to recover data first, use software like Recuva before formatting.

Omar

@Khoury 1 Subscribers

Make sure the USB port isn’t the issue. Try plugging it into a different port or another computer. Also, use a different cable if you can—it might be a bad connection causing the problem.

Mohammed

Hey, this happens to me sometimes! Check if the drive shows up in Disk Management (right-click the Start menu and select it). If it’s there but doesn’t have a drive letter, right-click it, select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths,' and add a letter. That usually fixes it for me.