Windows 10: Disk Drives not appearing in File Explorer

My USB drives suddenly stopped showing up in File Explorer. They appear in Disk Management but no longer are easily accessible through File Explorer. This occurs on both my lap tops. File Explorer no longer shows "C" drive. Can anyone explain why this is happening and how to restore these drives to appear in File Explorer?

:)

 

**SOLVED**USB drives not appearing in windows explorer? help please

can you do a scan for viruses and run a SMART scan on your HDD?

I reccomend
Hitman or EEK

and pretty much any HDD program will do but I primarily use gsmart or crystal

also do the disks show up in disk management?

only reason i suggest the smart data is because of the slow access time of explorer.

I suggest the virus scan because i had to deal with a system several months ago that had a trojan that modified files and prevented usb devices from loading.

I suggest disk manager because using bench machines for data pulls from HDDs would allocate all of my drive letters and windows stopped issuing them even after the drive was removed and there is a way to clear them.

 

My USB Backup drive does not show in My Computer window.

Hi Meran,

A few possible reason can cause your external drive to not show in File Explorer. To diagnose and fix this issue, we suggest that you check the Disk Management window. To open it, follow the steps below:

• Right-click on the Start button.
• Select Disk Management.
• Alternatively, you can search diskmgmt.msc in Cortana.

Examine the list of drives in the Disk Management window and look for your external drive. Even if it doesn’t show up in File Explorer, it should appear here. If the drive appears, it may not be appearing in File Explorer because it needs to be assigned
a drive letter. To do this, right-click the partition on the drive in Disk Management and select
Change Drive Letter and Paths.

If you don’t see the drive in the Disk Management window at all, we suggest that you try connecting the drive to a different USB port or use a different USB cable. We also recommend that you avoid using USB hubs, and connect the drive directly to your computer.

If you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to post a reply.

 

Random folders appearing to my new hard drive

In process explorer right click on columns > select columns > process disk tab > enable disk delta write bytes
Order the process list by disk delta write bytes columns and monitor which process springs on top when files and folders are being created.
If it's one of the svchost.exe instances then look at it's modules and threads in the lower pane to detect the culprit.