What to do if your external hard drive does not show in my computer

Easy to FIX

Right click on my computer
Choose MANAGE
Then find DISK MANAGEMENT
You should see your ext hard drive under the list.
Right click on it, and choose CHANGE DRIVE LETTER
Choose anything, but I recommand something higher than M:

I've seen this problem with alot of STORAGE DEVICE

It happen more often with Laptop because they usually have Card reader.
So it makes couple drives like e:, f:, g:.
Storage device tries to install themself with the drive letter next to CDROM
c: - HD1
d: - HD2 or CDROM
e: - Mass storage device (maybe for card readers)
So your external HD tries to have the E: drive (probably a bug)

See ya

hello mr.noname I find myslf in good trouble when my wd elements 500gb didn't get recognized by my win 7 I followed ur suggestions but its showing disk 2, unknown, not initialized after right click it gives option initialized disk but when I do so it ask to chose one of the below
1. mbr
2.gpt
choosing mbr ( recommended default ) said files are rite protected . I have losts of information on the hard disc related to my work pls help me out.

regards.
Mr.Abhi
 
THANK you MR no Name

I've try to find answers on Microsoft but no one there works.. thanks to your post I successfully fix it.. I thought my external is broke though -_-
 
I apologize if this has been asked, but my phone makes it difficult to read through everything. My question: How can I do this using a Mac computer?
 
Im still having a problem finding my external hard drive in the list it is plugge in and all the drivers are installed I just cant access it its no where to be found eccept for my devises tab
 
Hi I have followed he steps outlined in the post, but when I click on Disk Management all I get is
"Connecting to Virtual Disk Service" appear at the bottom of the window and then nothing.
 
I have a new external hard disk and it was working normally on my laptop (windows 7) until I plugged it into Apple Macintosh then tried to plugged it again into my laptop and it didn't work, What can I do ?? .. thanks in advance.
 
this is the solution for XP

THIS IS THE SOLUTION FOR XP. I dont know if it works for vista or 7.
YOU DONT HAVE TO LOOSE YOUR FILES FORMATTING THE DISK DOES NOT SHOW IN MY COMPUTER

1. click start and then run.
2. in the open box, type regedit and then cklick ok.
3. in the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkeys (first-second-third-etc) until you see in the right pane disk drives.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-
E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4. in the right pane, click UpperFilters.

Note. You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You dont have to remove this entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you dont see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 7.

5. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
6. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
7. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.

Note If you dont see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web Site.


8. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
9. When you are promptefd to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
10. Exit the Registry Editor.
11. Restart the computer.
12. First DELETE the UpperFilters and if this doesnt work after restart then you might have to DELETE the LowerFilters.
Nik The Greek



Hi,
I did all of the above, deleted both upper and lower filters and they no longer appear but the problem remains. it will not let me change drive letter and the box has cross shading.
I have no idea how to proceed. If you can help me I would be extremely grateful.
 
My hardrive is not accessible and not visible please help me with this, see my screen shots: my HD is already plugged in. I really need your help guys.
2.jpg2.jpg 3.jpg 4.jpg 5.jpg drive not showing.jpg
 
this is the solution for XP

THIS IS THE SOLUTION FOR XP. I dont know if it works for vista or 7.
YOU DONT HAVE TO LOOSE YOUR FILES FORMATTING THE DISK DOES NOT SHOW IN MY COMPUTER

1. click start and then run.
2. in the open box, type regedit and then cklick ok.
3. in the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkeys (first-second-third-etc) until you see in the right pane disk drives.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-
E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4. in the right pane, click UpperFilters.

Note. You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You dont have to remove this entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you dont see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 7.

5. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
6. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
7. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.

Note If you dont see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web Site.


8. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
9. When you are promptefd to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
10. Exit the Registry Editor.
11. Restart the computer.
12. First DELETE the UpperFilters and if this doesnt work after restart then you might have to DELETE the LowerFilters.
Nik The Greek

-----------------------------------------------------

Hello there,

This is Sagar. I am currently facing problem similar to what its mentioned above. I will describe my problem more specifically:

I have Westen Digital Harddisk 1TB and trying to connect to my Wipro laptop (WinXp Professional SP2). It shows a drive has appeared. When I try to open it says "Need to format". See screenshot01. I also changed its screenshot01.PNG drive name to "M" after referring to random website's solution but all in vain.

Can you please help as I have very important data in it & I don't want to lose it.

Thanks in advance,

Sagar Gohokar.
[email removed]
 
Hi
So external HDD not regognised, when it comes up in Disk Management ( I think its it ) it says invalid ( no size of HDD) I can refomat this area, but if I do wont I lose all the data thats on the drive?
 
Not read all the posts but the sollution I found was u need to go into I think disk management like pics above the nchange letter of the drive as when plugging external drive in it is trying to use the same letter as one u already have so example change letter D to a H r something
 
Hi guys...

I'm having a very similar problem as the rest of you it would appear!
I have an old hitachi 250gb hdd with lots of pics and vids on it that I need access to.
I have plugged it into my laptop/windows 7 via a usb caddy. the computer said it was installing drivers etc but it doesn't show up under my computer. tried to follow steps previously mentioned on this thread but not sure what to do.....
the hdd is not shown in the top list under disk management but appears in the bottom list as disk 1 unknown not initialized. see screen shot

really could do with your help pls! thanks in advance
 

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Imagine the confusion trying to answer all of these different people's questions within the same thread. You would have several different conversations going on at the same time. If you follow the tutorial and still cannot solve your problem, I recommend not tacking your question onto the end of this tutorial. Instead, post your problem in the appropriate subject forum and you will most likely get some help there.

If you insist on posting in this thread, go ahead but notice that not many posts are answered here.
 
Many Many thanks to the solution, my samsung m2 nearly chrashed about since it did not appear on my laptop and have tried to this different times in normal windows 7 but the laptop stop to work so I applied ur suggestion on safe mode and successfully recover my hard drive and protect my life time lost documents...
Thank you again...
 
This is really bugging me , basically , I did all of the below but I can't access my external HDD

anyone , I would be very greatful for your help


Easy to FIX

Right click on my computer
Choose MANAGE
Then find DISK MANAGEMENT
You should see your ext hard drive under the list.
Right click on it, and choose CHANGE DRIVE LETTER
Choose anything, but I recommand something higher than M:

I've seen this problem with alot of STORAGE DEVICE

It happen more often with Laptop because they usually have Card reader.
So it makes couple drives like e:, f:, g:.
Storage device tries to install themself with the drive letter next to CDROM
c: - HD1
d: - HD2 or CDROM
e: - Mass storage device (maybe for card readers)
So your external HD tries to have the E: drive (probably a bug)

See ya
 
I am having an issue with one of my external drives.

After a power outage all my hard drives came up no issues except one.

The hard-drive is there and under Disk Management it shows up as "healthy" and the capacity correct.

The problem is that when you try to explore it nothing happens.
I tried rebooting and unplugging and plugging it back on and it does attempt to look for the files but stops.

Help.
:)

Update. If I try to eplore and wait and wait....it finally asks if I want to format.

I do have the option of error-checking the volume under properties but before I make a mess I will await your suggestions.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What version of Windows are you running?
Do you need to recover data from the drive or just reformat ok?

Is this a USB flash drive or external hard drive?
Does Disk Management show a File System on the drive? (like NTFS or FAT32? or does it say Raw?
 
It found 68 files 191k ignored.

I have NOT hit the recover.

It sees the files and it was nearly 3tb of data and the sad aspect of this was I was in the middle relocating all the files to back-up when the power went out.
 
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