Windows 10: External hard drive not appearing in file explorer

my windows 7 laptop died (no power). I purchase new windows 10 laptop and am attempting to read my former hard drive by making it an external drive. It is recognized as a device but I cannot view any of the files in file explorer. I am just attempting to recover some recent files that hadn't been backed up. Please help.

:)

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.

 

External drive not appearing in File Explorer

I had the same problem - this is what worked for me:

• Plug in and turn on the external USB hard drive
• Right mouse click on My Computer
• Left click on Manage
• Left click on Device Manager
• Expand the USB list
• Find the USB device for your USB Hard Drive (in my case it was the one that had no description)
• Right mouse click - Uninstall
• Remove the external USB hard drive
• Plug in the external USB hard drive and let it find and install the driver

This and other possible solutions are here:

Not able to see my hard drive in windows explorer?

 

saving and viewing files on an external hard drive

Hi Sam,

We appreciate you for being part of Windows 10.

Yes, you may format the external hard drive. Follow the below steps.

• 
  Connect the external hard drive to Windows 10 computer.
  
• 
  Press Windows + E keys on the keyboard to the keyboard to open the file explorer.
  
• 
  Locate the external hard drive on left navigation pane in File explorer.
  
• 
  Right click on the external hard drive and click on
  Format.
  
• 
  Click Start and follow on screen instructions to format the hard drive.
  

I hope the above information helps. Kindly let us know if you need any further assistance with Windows. We are glad to assist you.

Thank you.