May192012

Why does Windows not recognize my external hard disk?

SaraAlShorty asks:

So I have got a MyPassport External hard drive. I tried connecting it on MacBook, Dell and Toshiba laptops, but it doesn’t show on the screen or on “My Computer”. I have a lot of school work and shows on it. How can I open it? Just all of a sudden it didn’t work. Thanks for helping me.


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System: Windows
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2 Answers -

0 votes

Laga Mahesa

May 19, 2012

Right-click “My Computer”, select “Manage”. After the security prompts, you’re faced with a large 2- or 3-pane window. On the left pane, select “Disk Management”.

Look at the bottom half. Is your drive there? You might need to scroll. Look for “Disk x Removable”

If so, to the right of the label you should see “xxx Gb, Healthy”. Right-click this and select “Change Drive Letters and Paths”

In the resulting window, choose “Add” then pick a letter. Okay everything and the drive should appear in My Computer.

If you did not see the drive, there may be a fault – try switching USB ports or even cable if possible.

Chris

I had the same issue and this totally did the trick. Thanks for the help.

August 21, 2012
0 votes

ha14

May 19, 2012

western digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=613&sid=3&lang=en

Go to START, CONTROL PANEL, SYSTEM & MAINTENANCE, ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS, COMPUTER MANAGEMENT, then DISK MANAGEMENT. if the external hard drive is shown in the bottom panel, and the new one says “offline” on the left hand side. So right clicked where it said “offline” and changed it to “online

Plug in your USB drive.
Open the command prompt (Click Start -> Run -> type cmd.exe and press Enter)

Type in the following:
1. diskpart
2. list disk
3. select disk
(enter the number that corresponds to your MyPassport drive)
4. active
5. exit

marthinus

I have a seagate agent Go 320 GB
Shows in disk management but not in my computer.
In computer management ,
I Uninstalled the driver and reinstalled from Microsoft database
(automatically got the driver in windows 7)

September 6, 2012