Oct 26, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
While the external hard drive connected to the Windows computer or Mac, and the device did not show up. How to fix external hard drive not recognized? Don't worry, in this guide we will show you the best solution to fix the hard drive not recognized problem.
This problem will cause by some partition issues: the external hard drive partition got damaged, the file system got crashed, the drive errors in Windows computer, or the dead USB ports. You can try the hard drive on another computer or connect it with other USB ports. If it does not get working, you can follow the next solution to fix the external hard drive not recognized on Windows computer and Mac, and you can recover lost data from external hard drive with Recoverit Data Recovery.
Part 1. How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Windows
In windows, this problem can be because of partition issues, dead USB ports, driver windows conflicts, file systems, dead or outdated drivers. Here are the steps you can follow to fix this issue in case of USB flash or external hard drives:
The external drive uses the format which is not recognized by Mac. If you want to find an external drive which is not showing up, you should note that in most cases, people tend not to plug the drive properly which leads to the connection failure.
Step 1You might be plugging in the USB cable in a dead USB port. Unplug your external hard drive and plugin it in some other USB ports. Now, see if it is present there in the My Computer window. If not, follow step 2.
Step 2Now, look for the external drive in the Disk Management Window. For this, click Start and then click Run or press windows key + r, press enter after typing diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog. This will open the Disk Management Window. Now, look for the external disk in this window. In this window, you can find your drive even if it is not recognized because of no partition. If you cannot find the drive in the Disk Management window then you can go for step four.
While the external hard drive connected to the Windows computer or Mac, and the device did not show up. How to fix external hard drive not recognized? Don't worry, in this guide we will show you the best solution to fix the hard drive not recognized problem. Again, check My Computer/My PC for external drive; If does not show, restart your PC. ( in case if it shows initially but disappear later, then repeat the above step and click on Disk Management- Change Drive Letter- Reconnect it) Solution 3: Change Registry. Modifying the registry is another great approach to fix the issue. Steps to modify. First Things First Check that the cable from the hard drive to your Mac is connected properly. Check that the external hard drive has power if it needs it. Check the condition of the cable and swap it if you have a spare. Change the hard drive power cable if you have a spare. Try a different wall.
Step 3If it is not recognized by plugging in some other port or it is not visible in the Disk Management Window, then there might be some issue with the external drive. Check it on some other computers. Now, follow step 1 to step 3 in that computer in case the external drive is not recognized. If the problem exists with another computer also then something is wrong with the drive, otherwise follow step 5:
Step 4If it is working in some other systems but not in yours, Windows is having some problem with the drivers. To diagnose a driver problem, open the run dialog by pressing Windows + r and type 'devmgmt.msc'? Now press enter. Expand Disk Drives and look for a device having a yellow exclamation mark. This yellow exclamation mark indicates a problematic driver. Now, right-click on that device and read the error message after selecting properties. This issue can resolve in the following two ways:
- Click on the update driver button for installing updated drivers.
- Uninstall the driver and restart your computer. After restarting, the Windows will automatically reinstall and reconfigure the driver.
Now, plug in the external drive again or follow step 6 if the drive is still not recognized.
Step 5Problem in partitioning and formatting can also be a cause of this issue. Partitioning and file system issues can be fixed by using Windows Disk Management tools. To create a new partition, right-click inside the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume. You can create a new partition by following onscreen instructions. Sometimes, your drive is formatted with the ext4 file system of Linux, NTFS file system, HFS Plus file system, or FAT32 file system which is not recognized by your Windows. Reformatting of the drive can resolve this issue. For this, right-click on the partition, select format, and then select the file system. Here, it is important to know that all files in the drive will be deleted. Therefore, copy your files in some other systems before proceeding.
Video Tutorial on How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Showing Up
Part 2. How to Fix External Hard Drive Not Recognized on Mac
My External Drive Is Not Showing Up Mac
Like Windows, Mac also detects an external drive automatically. If it doesn't, follow these steps:
Step 1 First of all, look for the external hard drive in the finder window. For this, click on File and then click New Finder Window. Now, look for the drive below the remote disk.
Step 2 If the external drive is not there, make sure that the USB cable is properly plugged in the external hard drive and the port.
Step 3 Sometimes, the drive is connected but not mounted. To mount a drive, open Disk Utility and look for the drive in the list. If it is there, check below it. Now click on the mounting button to mount it. Open a Finder window to see if the drive is mounted or not.
Step 4 If you still cannot find it in the finder, it might not be getting enough power. Single USB ports can provide only 5 V. In that case, make use of USB cable having one USB connection for the external HD and two for Mac. This will supply the power required by the external hard drive.
These steps for fixing an external hard drive not recognized on Windows and Mac are suitable for external hard drives of all capacities and manufacturers. However, if still the issue is not resolved, you can avail of professional help.
Part 3. The Best External Hard Drive Data Recovery Software
While the external hard drive got damaged and did not detect on the computer, after you fix the problem, you should your data back. We will introduce the best external hard drive data recovery to help you retrieve data back. Recoverit Data Recovery Software is a powerful data recovery program, it can help you recover data from external hard drives easily and effectively.
Recoverit External Hard Drive Recovery Software
Recoverit Data Recovery is the best external hard drive recovery program, it can easily and effectively help you recover lost or accidentally deleted files from the hard disk drive, or another external storage device: USB drive, flash drive, SD card.
Steps on How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive
Download and install Recoverit Data Recovery on your computer. Launch Recoverit Data Recovery and follow the next steps to perform external hard drive data recovery on a Windows computer, if you are a Mac user, you can download Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac to go on.
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to the computer, select it while the disk detected on the program.
Step 2. The external hard drive recovery software will start scanning the device to searching the lost files.
Step 3. In minutes� all recovered files will display on the result. You can preview photos, videos, music, Word, Excel, PPT, and PDF. Select your files and click the 'Recover' button to restore.
When the external hard drive got damaged, you can try to fix it with the solution mentioned above. Also, get your data back with Recoverit Data Recovery in simple steps. Download and try it for now.
What's Wrong with Drive
- Recover Your Drive
- Fix Your Drive
- Format/Wipe Drive
- Know Your Drive
If the external hard drive shows the wrong capacity, you will see less space than actual. Why your drive is not showing full capacity has many reasons. Figure out real causes by reading through this article, and find solutions to restore its full size on both Windows and Mac. The troubleshooting operation might cause data loss, so you need to download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for important data recovery.
'Why is my Seagate external HDD not showing the true capacity? I use a 4TB external hard drive to create a recovery drive and regular backups. Now with a new laptop, I decided to reformat the drive but Windows says it has only 32GB on it. What's going on with the rest free space?'
Have you ever met the situation when your external hard drive is not showing the full capacity on your Windows PC or Mac? As investigated, most hard drives of Seagate, Lacie, Western Digital or Sandisk hard drive larger than 2TB have this common problem. Yes, it common to see your 2TB hard drive shows only 500G, 200G, 127G or 32G when connected to a computer. But, a hard drive that is under 2TB also has the same problem. What's the reason? Can you reclaim the full capacity?
Why does external hard drive not show full capacity?
Most times, it's because your hard drive has been initialized to a wrong partition table. As we know, MBR partition table cannot address to the space that exceeds 2TB. That's why owners of 3TB and 4TB hard drives are likely to see less hard drive space than it should be. To solve this type of problem, you need to convert MBR to GPT.
But hard drives less than 2TB is not restricted by the MBR limitation, why they still have the incorrect size information? This time you should check the hard drive errors.
Any driver and firmware issues would result in an improper recognization for Windows. Also, computer virus and hidden recovery partition are also prone to cause similar issues.
How to fix wrong capacity issues in Windows [3 fixes]
Mostly, when a storage device is not showing the right capacity or space on Windows PC, the most proper cause of this issue is that the external hard drive driver or firmware are out of date. So, to regain the full capacity displaying on your computer, Method 1and Method 2 for updating drive driver and firmware are highly necessary.
Fix 1. Convert MBR to GPT
We introduce two free-to-use methods for you: Windows Disk Management and EaseUS free partition manager. This video tutorial teaches you how to convert MBR to GPT with both tools.
NOTE: You must delete the partition first and then initialize to GPT in Windows Disk Management. EaseUS Partition Master is able to convert MBR to GPT without data loss, but it needs you to download and install in Windows 10/8.1/8/7.
Fix 2. Update external hard drive driver
Step 1. Keep your external hard drive connected to your PC, right-click on This PC/My Computer and choose Properties.
Step 2. Click 'device manager' on the left pane and expand USB Serial Bus controller.
Then you'll see a yellow exclamation mark, and right click on it and select 'Update driver' or 'Update driver software'.
Step 3. Click 'automatically search for driver software online'..
Fix 3. Update firmware of external hard drive
Step 1. Check the firmware version of your external hard drive
1. Connect your external hard drive to your PC and right-click on Windows icon and select Device Manager.
2. Select Disk Drivers, expand it, then find and right-click on your external hard drive, select Properties.
3. Click Details and then select Hardware IDs from the Properties drop-down menu.
The manufacturer and firmware version information will appear in the Value box.
Step 2. Download the firmware update of your external hard drive
1. Go to the website of your external hard drive's manufacturer and enter the support page of the company or searching download drivers on the website.
2. Click on Support, Download or Drivers.
3. Then enter the model number of your external hard drive or hard drive in Search Knowledgebase, Search Downloads or Model / Parts ID to find the right one.
4. Check for update firmware.
If the new firmware of your drive is available, click Download, Install or Download Firmware to download and install it to a portable USB drive.
Step 3. Burn downloaded ISO and upgrade the firmware
1. Open the portable USB which saves your firmware ISO of the external hard drive and right-click on the ISO file, select Burn Disk Image.
2. Insert a writable disk or USB to your PC and select the optical drive from the Drive Burner and click Burn.
3. Restart your PC and the burned disk or USB drive, press F2, F10, F12 or Esc to bring up BIOS.
4. Select your optical or USB drive using the arrow keys and hit Enter.
5. Follow the firmware upgrade instructions and when you complete the upgrade process, you'll get a working external hard drive with full capacity by then.
How to recover data after restoring hard drive to its full size (Windows & Mac)
If operations bring data loss issue while fixing the concerned problem, and you don't have a backup at hand, download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover lost, deleted or formatted data on the hard drive. The software has both Windows and Mac OS X/macOS versions. Download the correct version depending on your own device.
Step 1. Choose the external hard drive View mac disk on windows.
Since you're going to recover data from the external hard drive, run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and under the External Devices tab, choose the exact drive where you lost data. Click Scan.
Step 2. Scan for lost data
Best Mac Compatible External Hard Drive
The software will start immediately to scan all over the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you could see more and more data showing up in the results.
Step 3. Preview and recover data
After the scan is over, check the scan results for the desired data. You can preview the file by double-clicking on it. Click Recover and choose another location to save the recovered data.
