Windows 10: detecting external drives

1. Windows does not detect any of my external hard drives ADATA, WD Elements and Toshiba

:)

 

usb external harddrive is not detected

Hi,



Thank you for replying.

• Have you allocated drive letter for the external drive?
• Do you get any prompt when you connect the external drive to your PC?
• Is the external device getting detected under disk manager?

You will be able to view the contents of drives if you have allocated a drive name/letter. If you do not allocate a name/letter and if you try to view it on the PC, it will not be visible.



Connect the external device to the PC and follow the steps below to check if the external drive is getting detected:

• Open Run command by pressing Windows Key + R, type
  diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.
• Check if the external device is detected in this window.
• If the device is detected as unallocated, right click on the external drive and select
  New Simple Volume option. Follow the onscreen instructions where-in, in one of the page you will be asked to select a drive letter.
• Assign a drive letter and check if you are able to access the contents of the drive.

Write back to us with the answers to the above questions and status of the issue for further assistance. Your reply is most important for us to ensure we assist you accordingly.



Thank you.

 

usb external harddrive is not detected

Have the same issue. But when I right click the options are grey only PROPERTIES and HELP are available. No drive letter is listed. It shows a white arrow going down inside a red circle next to DISK 1

UNKNOWN

931.51 GB

NOT INITIALIZED with a box next to that w/a black stripped header

 

External drive

Hi Richard,

There are several factors that can cause your external drive to not read DVDs even though the system is recognizing the device. This could be caused by a driver that needs to updated or corrupted files. For us to resolve your concern, kindly answer the questions
below:

• Just to confirm, the device that is not working properly is a external DVD optical drive?
• Were there any recent changes or updates installed on your computer?
• Have you tried to plug the external drive to a different port on your computer?

As a initial recommendation, we suggest that your run the built in troubleshooter in Windows 10. Kindly refer to the steps below:

• Type “Troubleshooting” in the Search bar and press Enter.
• Click on “View All” in the top left corner.
• This will display the list of troubleshooters which are built-in in the computer. You can click on
  Hardware and Devices from the list and you can run the troubleshooter.

This will check for common errors that affect hardware on your computer and attempts to correct them.

We look forward to your response after completing the steps.