Windows 10: External USB Drive Sometimes Not Detected at Boot

I have a 2TB external Seagate Expansion USB hard drive connected permanently via USB 3.0 to my desktop PC mainly used for scheduled Reflect backups (I also back up to another USB drive stored elsewhere). The PC is running Windows 10 Pro 21H1 build 19043.1052. Sometimes at boot the drive is not connected but does appear after a restart. Chkdsk and the SeaTools disk utility does not find any errors with the drive. Have you any ideas on the what is causing this? I might replace the drive anyway with a high capacity internal drive for scheduled backups which is likely to be faster and more reliable.

:)

 

Boot linux on USB drive

it might just be that your bios doesn't support it, but it should anyway.

make sure you go into the bios and make sure "boot other device" is enabled and try seeing if the usb is listed as an hdd.. as bootable flash drives are usually picked up as usb hdd's and check if your bios detects the flash drive.

 

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