Drives not showing up in my computer windows 7

A USB drive not showing up in Windows is one of the common issues related to external storage devices. This issue may be the result of various causes. In this guide, we'll show you what happens when this error occurs, what the reasons for this issue are, and provide you with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover data from your USB drives that are not showing up in Windows. About the Author.

Reviews and Awards. All of my projects from this semester are stored on the drive, how can I get to my files?! Many users have encountered this particular problem where their USB flash drive just won't show up on their computer. It might be that the drive is visible in the Disk Management tool.

Depending on whether it shows up or not, use an appropriate section below to fix your issue. Here, we offer multiple solutions as there are two possible scenarios where your USB is not detected by your PC. These methods should help you fix your issue without making you lose any data. If you have this issue on a Mac, check out our flash drive not showing up on the Mac guide to resolve your issue.

Some possible reasons are:. The solutions vary based on the causes but all the solutions are detailed below. Follow these solutions and your issue should be gone.

Follow the detailed steps below to make your USB drive usable again. Step 1. Step 2. Select Device Manager and expand Disk drives. Find and right-click the problematic USB drive and select Update driver. Step 3. Click Automatically search for driver software online on the following screen. Step 4. Wait for the driver to be updated. Then, reboot your computer. This method can also be helpful in solving disk-related issues like "The system cannot find the file specified".

In the prompt asking you to confirm the removal, click OK. Sometimes, it will be marked as Removable. If it does not contain any partition, you still can see an unallocated space. Step 2. Try the following solutions if your drive does not appear in Disk Management. Do not use USB hubs. The USB hub does not supply enough power for your drive. You should directly connect the drive to USB port. Plug flash drive into different computers. Create a new simple volume with Disk Management if your drive is marked as an unallocated space.

You can right-click the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume from its context menu and follow the instructions on the wizard to finish the pending steps.

You can right-click the drive, select Format from the list and then select file system and hit OK to start the process. Clean the drive with Diskpart if you can see the drive but cannot format it in Disk Management. This may be caused by a messy partition scheme on the drive. With it, you can format partition without any obstacle. Besides, you can use it to create partition , change drive letter, change file system, etc.

Just follow the right method to make your new hard drive detectable and show up on your computer again. Change the connection between the external hard drive and computer, and you can make the external disk showing up. If nothing shows up, it's the external hard drive itself having a detection issue on your PC. Try the following 3 fixes to make the drive show up again. It will scan and find all your lost files. Applies to: Fix external hard drive not showing up and has a yellow exclamation mark in Disk Management.

When the external hard drive has an outdated drive driver, it won't show up in File Explorer. It appears with a yellow exclamation under the Disk driver section. Right-click the problematic external drive and select "Uninstall device". Click "OK" to confirm. Restart your computer and reconnect the external hard drive to your PC. Applies to: Fix external hard disk not showing up or not detected by Windows PC.

If you notice the external hard drive works with one computer but fails to be detected by another, you can try to update the USB Controller driver of the computer in which the hard drive is not showing up. Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software" and restart your computer.

If the above fixes don't fully resolve your issue on the not showing up external hard disk, don't worry. You may get further help from the below-listed tutorial page. Check it out to find the best solution for your issue. It might happen that a Toshiba external hard drive is not working in Windows, be it not showing up, not recognized, or not showing files.

Follow along to identify your situation and fix your Toshiba hard drive. Sometimes, a hard drive may not show files although the files exist. Note that the files that are missing on hard drive are still recoverable.

Files disappeared could be caused by the following reasons:. Run antivirus or malware clear software to remove all viruses and malware. Format the hard drive to restore its full capacity and set NTFS as its file system. You are now good to use this drive and save files on it again.

For more details, check out the article about the pen drive not showing files for help. In this guide, we explained to you why your hard drive or external hard drive is not showing up on Windows PC. We also provided solutions and fixes to help you make the used external or internal hard drive, and new hard drives show up again without losing any data.

In addition to new or used hard drive not showing up issue in File Explorer or Disk Management, we will try and answer some of your most asked questions about these issues. As described on this page, there are many ways you can follow to fix the internal hard drive not detected issue. For a used hard drive, try these tips shown on this page in Part 1 :. Similar to the solutions provided on this page, when a new hard drive is not detected or recognized on Windows 10, you should mainly follow the following tips:.

Similar to hard drive not showing up on Windows computer, the reasons why your hard drive is not showing up on Mac are pretty much the same.

For a step-by-step guide, you may follow Flash Drive Not Showing Up on Mac to troubleshoot the hard drive not detected on Mac issue and make the drive detectable again. He mainly writes articles about data recovery tutorials on PC and Mac and how-to tips for partition management. He always keeps an eye on new releases and likes various electronic products. Mahesh is an experienced computer tech writer.

He's been writing tech how-to guides for about 8 years now and has covered many topics. He loves to teach people how they can get the most out of their devices. It's far from perfect, partly because today's advanced disk technology makes data-recovery more difficult than it was with the simpler technology of the past.

It comes with a selection of advanced features, including partition recovery, formatted drive restoration, and corrupted file repair.