9 Fixes | Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

My Toshiba external hard drive not showing up!

A growing number of users prefer using external HDDs to save and transfer data due to their portability and large capability. And Toshiba external hard drives stand out among numerous external hard drives and attract many users because of their high quality and stable performance.

However, when your Toshiba external hard drive does not show up using File Explorer or Disk Management, how can you access the data on it?

Generally speaking, if your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up or not detected, which implies your Toshiba external hard drive not working.

If you’re eager to jump out of this dilemma, this passage is right for you to make Toshiba external hard drives show up.

Why is my Toshiba hard drive not showing up?

Why is my external hard drive on but not showing up? Please get an overview of the following possible reasons before reading further.

• Poor drive connection
• An absence of a drive letter
• Outdated or corrupted external hard drive driver
• USB port malfunction
• Outdated Windows update version  
• Partition issues
• Power failure
• Improper ejection
• Virus attacks

Phase 1. How to fix Toshiba external hard drive not showing up?

If there’s no data loss, you only need to refer to the first part to fix your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up. Please go to the second part if you desire to recover deleted & missing files from detected Toshiba external HDDs.

Fix 1. Check your Toshiba external hard drive connection

If your USB ports cannot receive enough power from the motherboard, your connected Toshiba external hard drive might fail to work. Please try the following tips to check your drive connection as your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up in Windows File Explorer.

◢ Please use the original USB cable to connect your Toshiba external HDD.

◢ Please change to another USB port to connect your Toshiba external HDD.

◢ Please connect your Toshiba external HDD to another working PC.

Fix 2. Change drive letter and paths for your Toshiba external HDD

In computing, drive letter assignment is a procedure of assigning alphabetical IDs to volumes. An absence of a drive letter can make your Toshiba external hard drive access denied by Windows OS.

So it’s unsurprising that your connected Toshiba external hard drive not showing up via Windows File Explorer.

To reappear your Toshiba external HDD, you can change its drive letter and paths using Disk Management because this Windows system utility can display each drive for your PC and all partitions for each drive. And this tool is good at performing varied advanced storage tasks.

Step 1. Connect the Toshiba external hard drive to your Windows PC, then press “Win + X” and select “Disk Management” to enter its main interface.

Step 2. Right-click on your Toshiba external hard drive and select the “Change Drive Letter and Paths” option.

Step 3. Select “Add” to assign a new drive letter to your Toshiba external HDD.

Step 4. Select the “Assign the following drive letter” option. Please ensure the newly selected drive letter needs to be different from all the existing drive letters.

Fix 3. Update your Toshiba external hard drive driver

As mentioned above, an outdated external hard drive driver is one of the possible factors for this issue. Precisely, your Windows OS can fail to recognize your connected Toshiba external HDD which is not the latest version.

Step 1. After connecting Toshiba external HDD to your PC, press “Win + X” and select “Device Manager” to open it.

Step 2. Expand Disk drives and right-click on your Toshiba external HDD. Then select the “Update driver” option.

Step 3. Please click the “Search automatically for drivers” button.

Fix 4. Check the Power Management for USB controllers

Users usually connect their external HDDs to PCs using USB cables. A malfunctioning USB port can prevent your drivers from showing up normally.

In this case, you’d better test the power management for your USB controllers via the following steps.

Step 1. Connect your Toshiba external hard drive to the PC. Then press “Win + X” and select “Device Manager” to open it.

Step 2. Expand Universal Serial Bus Controllers and right-click on your chosen USB Root Hub. Then click the “Properties” button.

Step 3. Under the Power Management tab, uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to power” and click “OK” to save your changes.

Fix 5. Disable USB selective suspend setting

Please check if your system’s power settings are discouraging your connected Toshiba external hard drive from showing up in your File Explorer or Disk Management. Once you’ve disabled specific settings in Power Settings, your Toshiba external HDD or USB is not recognized.

Step 1. Type “edit power plan” in the search bar on your PC and open it.

Step 2. In the Edit Plan Settings window, click the “Change advanced power settings” button.

Step 3. In the Power Options window, expand USB settings > USB selective suspend setting option > Disabled.

Fix 6. Check for updates & update your Windows

If you never updated your Windows, your connected Toshiba external hard drive might not display. Thus, you can check and update your Windows to the latest version because Windows update is a practical approach to fix hardware bugs and automatically bring new features.   

Notes:✎...

You can get more details on another page to delete Windows update files Windows 10.

Step 1. Press “Win + I” to open Windows Settings and go to the Update & Security section.

Step 2. In the Update & Security interface, click the “Check for updates” button.

Fix 7. Run Windows troubleshooter

If your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up, the Hardware and Devices Troubleshooter is a powerful built-in tool that can find and fix errors on your computer hardware and devices.

Besides, if you need to find missing drives on Windows 10, or 11, you can also try to find them by running the troubleshooter.

Step 1. Press “Win + I” to open Windows Settings and click the “Update & Security” button.

Step 2. After clicking Troubleshoot on the left, click “Run the Troubleshooter” under the Hardware and Devices tab.

Fix 8. Boot your Windows in safe mode

If you want to figure out why your Toshiba external hard drive is not showing up, you can boot your Windows computer in safe mode because this mode only requires running essential drivers and files.

When your PC can boot into safe mode and work normally, it might be that your Toshiba hard drive not working. Besides, this way also can help you fix the Red Screen of Death.

Step 1. Press “Win + I” to open Windows Settings and click the “Update & Security” button.

Step 2. Click “Recovery” on the left. Under the “Advanced startup” tab, click the “Restart now” button.

Step 3. Click Troubleshoot > Advanced options.

Step 4. Under the Startup Settings tab, click the “Restart” button. Then you can press F4, F5, or F6 based on your needs to boot your PC in Safe Mode.

Fix 9. Initialize your Toshiba external hard drive  

Sometimes, an uninitialized Toshiba external hard drive also can result in your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up in Disk Management. This issue is a little similar to M2 drive not showing up.   

Notes:✎...   

Please note that disk formatting or initialization can erase all the existing files on your Toshiba external HDD. Therefore, this way is the last resort to fix your Toshiba external HDD.

If you prefer an easier way to initialize your Toshiba external HDD, using this free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a better choice.

Step 1. Connect the Toshiba external hard drive to your PC and open the Control Panel by entering it in the search bar. Then select the “System and Security” option.

Step 2. Click the “Administrative Tools” button.

Step 3. Click the “Computer Management” button.

Step 4. Click “Disk Management” on the left.

Step 5. Right-click on your connected Toshiba external hard drive and click the “Initialize Disk” button.

Step 6. Select “MBR” or “GPT” according to the capacity of your Toshiba external hard drive. After that, click “OK” to save your changes.

Step 7. After initialization, right-click on the unallocated space of your Toshiba external HDD and select the “New Simple Volume” option.

Step 8. Set the partition size and a new drive letter of your Toshiba external hard drive, then click Format this volume with the following settings > Next. Please ensure the file system is NTFS.

After that, click Finish to close the last window and return to the main interface of the Disk Management utility.

Phase 2. How to recover files from Toshiba external hard drives?

After fixing your Toshiba external hard drive not showing up, some users are desperate to recover deleted & missing files from Toshiba external hard drives.

In this case, using powerful data recovery software could be the most efficient method.

Those users who’re proficient in computers can seek help from Windows File Recovery because this command line software aims to recover lost files from local storage devices like external hard drives. But this doesn’t work for ordinary users to resemble command lines.

So why not use another friendly data recovery software like MyRecover? Supported by AOMEI Tech, MyRecover offers an intuitive GUI (graphical user interface) and is good at performing external hard drive data recovery.   

★Tips:   

All-inclusive: Apply to a variety of data loss scenarios such as deletion, disk formatting, system crashes, or virus attacks.

High-efficiency: Recover 200+ types of files such as MS Office and WPS files, folders, compressed files, photos, audio, songs, videos, websites, etc.

Advanced scanning method: MyRecover runs Quick Scan & Deep Scan automatically to search all the recoverable files. Specify the filename, saved path, date, or size to filter your needed files.   

Convenience: Retain the original filename, path, and format for the deleted files.

Excellent compatibility: Support NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and ReFS file systems.

Don’t hesitate to download MyRecover on your Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, or Server PC!

Step 1. Connect the Toshiba external hard drive to your Windows. After launching MyRecover, hover the mouse over your Toshiba external HDD and click Scan.

Step 2. Filter your needed data according to Name, Date, Document Type, or Path.

• Name: Type the filenames of your desired files to narrow the search area.
• Date modified: Set the date (today, yesterday, last 7/30 days, and so on) according to your situation.
• Size: Filter the file size (<128KB, 128KB~1MB, 1MB~ 512MB, etc) based on your needs.

Step 3. Go to the Deleted Files/Recycle Bin/Other Missing Files folder and select the data you want. Then click “Recover x files” to begin the external hard drive data recovery process.

Notes:✎...

After recovery, you’d better store these retrieved files in another partition instead of the original Toshiba external HDD.

Upgrading MyRecover to the Professional or Technician edition is a more cost-effective solution if you want to recover a large number of deleted & lost files from local drives.   

Further reading: How do I protect files on my external hard drives?

No one wants to suffer the second damage. There’re some pertinent suggestions for you to protect your external hard drive and prevent data loss.

• Be away from high temperatures or humid environments such as sunlight and water.
• After seeing Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media, you’re ready to eject SD cards.
• Please don’t eject or remove your external HDD as it reads, writes, or transfers data.
• Run the latest anti-virus software to protect your PC.
• Please think twice before deletion.
• Only regular backups can prevent data loss at the source. If you prefer easier backup & restoration steps, AOMEI Backupper is better than Windows features.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Backupper on your Windows PC and select the “File Backup” option.

Step 2. Click “Add Folder/Add File” to add the folder or files you want to back up.

Step 3. Click “Schedule Backup” to enable Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers or USB plug as you prefer. Then click the “Start Backup” button.