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

accidentally changed drive letter on c drive

Followed advice on this thread to change drive letter but changed "C" to "N." Now I really screwed up and can't even start computer since c drive isn't accessible. I can explain more if anyone can help. Thx.

was ur external hd drive letter really c that doesn't sound right.

no external hard drive was E but computer wasn't detecting it anymore. When I followed advice to go in and change drive letter, I didn't know I was changing C drive (it said "O") but all info related to C drive is wiped out, no desktop, can't even access "My Computer," so I know it was C drive I changed to "N."

You don't want to change the drive letter for the disk volume that has Windows installed (e.g. C)

Google Advanced Start Options for your version of Windows and try booting into Last Known Good Configuration.

Otherwise google System Restore for your version of Windows and restore to a time before the problem

Agree, now in retrospect, to not ever change drive letter on "C." It said "O" and I didn't realize what I was doing . . . but it crashed everything.

Tried Last Known Config but get same looping result as regular start up looping problem. Safe Mode wasn't even accessible (Windows logo just kept blinking on and off but was in an unending loop too). Thus, couldn't do System Restore either.

Next, tried Repair (R) option by booting with re-install disk. Voila!!! This was the fix. Yay!! After the whole repair process (about 30 min), it auto restarted as it should but kept saying "please wait" in the black windows opening screen. Waited about 30 min. Figured this wasn't going t/b solution so turned off. Then, rebooted quickly taking out re-install disk. It started normally and perfectly. All my files are there and accessible again as if this all never happened. SOOO glad I did "repair" with re-install disk first instead of what I was very tempted to and advised to do -- a re-install that would have wiped out all files, settings, drivers, etc.

Woo-Hoo! Great job! Glad you figured this one out and thanks for posting your result.

We all learn from experience (sometimes even bad experience) but glad this one turned out good in the end!

Happy Computing

My external harddisk is not initialized yet and a error comes up when i try to initialized it..can anyone help me with it?

Thanks a lot for the soln.. I had the same problem.. Its working now..
nowhere did i found this soln..

none of the above

My problem seems to be different from the ones previous. I got an SSD and planned to use the HDD I was replacing as an external drive in an enclosure. When I connect the (now) external drive it is recognized in device management, but not in disk management. I've tried three different enclosures with no success each on three PCs. I can put it back in the laptop and still boot off the drive so I know its still good. While installed in the laptop, I booted on a gparted live cd and was able to format it as fat32 and ntfs. When I made it an external drive gparted could not see it. What could be wrong?

Seriously Stuck...

Guys please help.

i recently bought 1tb WD External HD. I have approx 750 GB stuff on it at the moment. I was using it the other day and it dropped while it was plugged in to my laptop. since then I cant find it in my computer. when I plugg-in, it makesa beep-noise, light comes on but NO SHOW in y computer.

I followed the steps given above -
My computer - Manage- Disk mngmnt - etc but when I click on Disk management --> it says INITIALIZE DISC - and I get two option to initialize the disc with
1)MBR
2)GPT
when I choose MBR and click OK - it says THE MEDIA IS WRITE PROTECTED. and I get back to the square one. It is so frustrating. i have got very important presentation and files on my HD. please help.




Thanks in advance.


is there any1 to help??? plz

I've tried the Computer Management before but never thought of changing drive letter.
Thanks MrNoname, it worked like a charm.

my external hdd not displaying in disk management also. how to solve my problem? anybody can help me? [email address removed]

cheers I knew what it was just couldn't find it thanks, anytime I try to do anything to the drive like change drive letter, format it or even check the properties it says:
The operation failed to complete because the disk management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the disk management console, then restart disk management or restart the computer.
An Ive tried them all, not sure what to do now please help!

Hi, I have a Hitachi 2T external HDD with 5 partitions and initialized with GPT. It was working well for quite some time until suddenly my Vista notebook is unable to detect it. I tried to use disk management to check but the application hangs. I have over 1T of important data in it. please help.

Im having a similar problem the external hard drive wont show up in my computer but the light comes on and the pc makes a noise so the cable is working fine what shall I do

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

This was a massive help. thanks.

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 -_-

Hello,
I have read this everywher I have one question-
what if it does not show CHANGE DRIVE LETTER on rightclicking?

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?