Windows 10: Windows 10 - Hard Drive Not Usable

I put in a 4TB WD Black in my system. It is detected in device manager however not in file explorer. How can I view this disk in file explorer?

:)

 

Making a hard drive usable

I have a new hard drive I'd like to use for back ups but Windows 10 doesn't recognize the drive as usable as a viable drive for backups. The drive is seen by the computer just not usable for back ups. Any suggests?

Thanks,

Rodeheaver

 

exterior hard drive usable?

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I suggest you to follow the below steps and check if it helps.

• Plug USB hard drive into old computer.
• Open File Explorer (Win+E) and open the USB drive.
• Open another File Explorer window and open your documents folder.
• Drag files to the USB drive.
• Move drive to new computer.
• Drag files to their new homes in the matching documents/pictures/videos/whatever folders you use to organize.

Please let us know if you have any further issues. in uploading/ transferring data.

Thanks.

 

Making a hard drive usable

Depending on what the drive is, and how it is connected - you may have to do certain other steps in order for windows to "see the drive".

A brand new drive will be unformatted and so needs to be formatted before use.

If it is internally connected via a SATA connector, even if you plug it in and the BIOS sees it, it would still probably need formatting.

If, however, you have bought a drive connected via USB then it may still need formatting.

There are various ways Windows can do a backup, a system image, a routine backup of your user account data, or a "mirror" of folders, automatically kept synchronised.

Formatting a second "backup" drive is usually created as a "simple volume" and the help section in Windows 10 will show you clear instructions on how to do this.

If you can supply any more specific messages or background on what the PC is complaining about, then we may be able to narrow down what the problem is.