Quickly Fixed: Windows 11 External Hard Drive Not Showing up

Why is external hard drive not showing up in Windows 11?

The external hard drive is widely used in our daily life and works to store data more conveniently. However, you may meet different types of issues when you use an external hard drive. Windows 11 external hard drive not showing up is one of the common external hard drive issues mentioned by users.

For such an external hard drive issue in Windows 11, we conclude some possible causes as follows. You can learn about them and avoid meeting this error next time.

• The USB port does not work normally.
• External hard drive is uninitialized.
• External hard drive driver is outdated.
• There is no drive letter on your external hard drive.

And more...

Solved: Windows 11 external hard drive not showing up

Thus, how to solve external hard drive not showing up in Windows 11? Try the following methods to let it visible normally in Windows Explorer.

Fix 1. Check the USB port connection

The most basic solution to the Windows 11 external drive not showing up issue is to check if there are errors on the USB port connection.

You can try to plug your external hard drive into another USB port on the computer to see if the external hard drive can show up in Windows 11 normally.

Fix 2. Initialize the external hard drive

Sometimes, your external drive not showing up in Windows 11 because it is new and has not been initialized. So, please initialize your new external hard drive before you begin using it.

1. Press the Windows and R keys on your keyboard. Input diskmgmt.msc to run Disk Management.

2. Right-click on your external hard drive and choose the Initialize Disk option. Set MBR or GPT as the partition style.

Then, you can right-click on it to choose New Simple Volume to create a partition on the external hard drive to use it.

Fix 3. Update the drivers

An outdated external hard drive driver is a common cause of Windows 11 external hard drive not showing up. Please keep the driver updated by following the steps here.

1. Right-click on the Start menu on your computer to choose Device Manager.

2. Under the Disk drivers tab, right-click on your external hard drive and choose the Update driver option.

3. Next, click Search automatically for drivers. Your Windows computer will choose the most suitable driver to install.

If updating the driver cannot solve your problem, you can choose Uninstall Device.

Fix 4. Assign a drive letter to the external hard drive

You may meet USB not recognized or external hard drive not showing up in Windows 11 and there is an asterisk next to your external hard drive in Disk Management. You can assign a drive letter to your external hard drive to solve this issue.

1. Go to the Disk Management page. Find your external hard drive and right-click on it to select Change Drive Letter and Paths....

2. If there is not a drive letter, choose Add. If there was a drive letter before, select Change. Now you can choose a letter from A to Z as you like. Then press OK.

Fix 5. Format the external hard drive

The file system in your external hard drive may be incompatible with Windows 11. For this, you can format the external hard drive. Likewise, you can go to Disk Management to format your external hard drive there.

1. Run Disk Management from the Start menu.

2. Find your external hard drive and right-click on it to choose Format.

3. Choose a file system that is supported in Windows 11, then click on OK to format your external hard drive now.

Tip: Recover lost data from external hard drive in Windows 11

During you try the methods above to make your external hard drive visible in Windows 11, if you meet the data loss issue unfortunately, we prepare a useful tip for you to recover lost data from your external hard drive in Windows 11 - a professional data recovery tool MyRecover.

You can see many shining points and powerful features in MyRecover:

Recover lost or deleted data from format, deletion, crashes, and more accidental situations.

Available in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, and Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012, etc.

More than 200 types of data can be recovered like files, folders, pictures, videos, audio, emails, compressed files, and so on.

Both recovery speed and the recovery rate are high.

With such a reliable recovery tool, you can format hard drive without losing data then. Refer to the easy tutorial if your data get lost or was deleted from the external hard drive.

1. First, connect your external hard drive to your computer and hover the mouse over the drive, and click Scan.

2. You can see your deleted files and other missing files from the drive after Quick Scan and Deep Scan automatically.

3. Check the scanning result, choose the files that you want to recover, and click on the Recover X files button to begin the recovery task. Select a new safe location for your recovered files.

To sum up

Windows 11 external hard drive not showing up is a common issue in Windows 11. We conclude some efficient solutions on this page. In addition, we introduce a professional data recovery tool and it can help you recover deleted files from external hard drive in any situation.