How To Find Hard Drive On Pc

(Photo: Nor Gal/Shutterstock)

Backing upwardly your data is of import, and while storing information on the cloud has go second nature to near, there's still nothing similar having everything saved on a physical device.

External drives are elementary: yous plug them in, they announced on your estimator, and yous can drag files right on over. But if your bulldoze isn't appearing when you plug information technology in, you lot might have a problem. Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can accept to remedy the situation.

Make Sure It'southward Plugged In and Powered On

Western Digital My Volume

I know, I know, but hear me out: just because y'all plugged the drive into your figurer doesn't hateful it'south necessarily receiving the power it needs. While some drives can depict plenty power from your computer'south USB port, others—peculiarly larger drives not intended to be portable, like the Western Digital My Book—may crave wall power to spin up.

If your drive came with an Air-conditioning power adapter but you haven't plugged it in, try hooking it up (and pressing the power button, if there is one). If it came with two USB plugs, brand sure they'reboth plugged into your PC. With any luck, your drive volition appear usually once it gets the juice it needs.

Try Some other USB Port (or Another PC)

(Photograph: Cronislaw/Shutterstock)

If the drive still isn't working, unplug it and try a unlike USB port. It's possible the port in question is declining, or just being finicky with your specific drive. If it's plugged into a USB 3.0 port, try a USB 2.0 port. If it's plugged into a USB hub, try plugging information technology straight into the PC instead. You might also try it in some other estimator.

If you're a multi-platform household, I'd specially recommend trying information technology in a computer that runs another operating arrangement—e.1000., if you can't get the drive showing upwards on a Windows PC, endeavor plugging it into a Mac. It's possible the drive merely isn't formatted for the computer y'all're trying to use, and you lot'll demand to copy that data onto a drive that'southward formatted for cantankerous-compatibility.

Update Your Drivers

Occasionally, Windows runs into driver issues that will render a device unrecognizable. Open the Get-go menu, type "device manager," and printing Enter when the option appears. Expand the Disk Drives menu and the Universal Serial Charabanc menu to see if your external drive appears in either set. If you see an entry that looks like your drive with a yellow exclamation mark, right-click on the device and choose Properties—you may find an error code you can Google. You lot can as well head to the Driver tab and try updating or uninstalling the driver and rebooting your calculator.

Usually, hard drives only use Windows' congenital-in USB and difficult deejay drivers, so this isn't likely to fix a temperamental drive, but it's worth a shot. (Yous can likewise try downloading drivers from the drive manufacturer's website, only again, that'southward probably a long shot.) Check out our guide to updating your drivers for more than details on this procedure.

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Enable and Format the Drive in Disk Direction

If your drive is powered on but still isn't appearing in File Explorer, it's time to exercise some earthworks. Open the Offset card and type "disk management," and press Enter when theCreate and Format Hard disk drive Partitions pick appears. In one case Disk Management loads, scroll downward to run into if your disk appears in the list. If it does, make sure information technology's online and formatted. If it'south offline, correct-click the disk'due south proper name (e.g. "Disk 2") and choose Online.

If the disk hasn't been formatted (it'll say "Unallocated" under a black bar), right-click information technology and chooseNew Simple Book. This will also solve the trouble if the drive is formatted for another operating system, equally described above. Be warned that formatting it will erase any data on the drive, and then merely continue if you're sure you don't need anything from information technology.

Finally, if your drive is online and formatted, but doesn't show a drive letter side by side to its name, correct-click the book and chooseChange Drive Letter and Paths to add together a bulldoze letter. If y'all're lucky, one of these simple steps should become your new drive upwardly and running.

Clean the Disk and Starting time From Scratch

In some more than specific cases, the drive will appear in Deejay Management, just only formatting the drive won't piece of work. This is extremely common with SD cards formatted with Linux distributions for the Raspberry Pi, for case.

To regain your drive'due south full capacity, you'll demand to run Windows' "make clean" command, which will return the bulldoze to a completely unformatted land. Again, this will erase anything on it, and so only continue if you have no other options—and make extra certain you're cleaning the correct disk, or you could lose a lot of information.

Open the Start carte, type "diskpart," and press Enter to open the run command. When the prompt appears, blazon "listing disk" and printing Enter to see the disks plugged into your system. If you see the drive in question appear—pay close attention to its size—make a note of its name. Nosotros'll use "Disk ii" in this example.

Type "select deejay 2" and press Enter to select the disk y'all want to clean. Finally, type "make clean" and press Enter. This will erase the disk, at which bespeak y'all tin follow the above steps to format it from the Disk Management console.

Remove and Examination the Bare Drive

Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA External Difficult Drive

If none of the above options work, you should remove the bulldoze from its external enclosure and examination the drive on its own. The components that convert that SATA drive into USB can neglect, meaning the drive could exist just fine if you connect it some other manner.

If you have a desktop PC bachelor, and the technological know-how, you can open information technology up and plug the drive directly into your motherboard. If not, buy a new external SATA-to-USB adapter dock or enclosure, plug your bare bulldoze into that, and so connect that to your PC over USB.

If it works, then your old enclosure (or its ability supply) may be expressionless. If your bulldoze still isn't recognized, yous may have a dead bulldoze. Contact the manufacturer to encounter if you're even so under warranty, and make certain your other difficult drives are in working social club.

Our Favorite External Difficult Drives

ADATA HD830 (Photograph: Zlata Ivleva)

If your bulldoze is beyond repair, it might exist time for a new one. Check out PCMag's roundup of the best hard drives, wireless drives, and rugged drives. We besides have roundups of the best drives for Mac.

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