Instructions for 5 ways to fix the error of not recognizing the removable hard drive on Windows

Unrecognized portable hard drive error often occurs with new hard drives. When you connect an external hard drive to your computer, your Windows does not recognize the removable hard drive. So how to fix this problem? The following article helps you show 5 ways that your hard drive can be encountered and how to fix it. 

1. Check the connection cap

The first thing you should do when the portable hard drive is not recognized is to check the USB port for damage, cables, loose jacks, rust, etc. Should switch the connection port to another port. It is also possible that the connection cable is too long, leading to insufficient load, please switch to a short cable to check.

2. Incompatible drivers

For each different hard drive brand, there will be a corresponding driver, update the latest driver compatible with the removable hard drive in use.

 Go to Control Panel -> Device Manager -> Disk drivers -> select removable hard drive -> Update driver

Usually, the computer now automatically installs the driver.

3. Removable hard drive not assigned a name by Windows

 With many different devices connected to the computer, Windows assigns a name to each device with a letter so that it can be managed. But there are also cases where Windows does not assign a name to that device, especially a portable hard drive. So the hard drive doesn't show up in This PC/My Computer. To proceed with assigning a name to the hard drive, perform the following steps:

Step 1: At the Desktop screen, right-click This PC or My Computer, select Manage.

Step 2: Select Disk Management. Here you will see the hard drives connected to the computer.

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Step 3: At the bottom of the Disk Management window, you will see an unnamed hard drive. Now give it a name. Right-click that hard drive -> select Change Drive Letters and Paths

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Step 4: A new window appears, select Change to change the name. Hard drives are named alphabetically from AZ. The name cannot be the same as the drives already in the computer. To finish click OK.

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Go to This PC to see if the hard drive has appeared.

4. Hard drive is not partitioned

With a new portable hard drive, it often happens that the hard drive has not been partitioned or partitioned in the computer. To create a partition for an external hard drive, perform the following steps:

Step 1: At the Desktop screen, right-click This PC -> select Manage

Step 2: Select Disk Management-> right-click on that partition (removable hard drive, the black bar is the unpartitioned drive area) -> select New Simple Volume.

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Step 3: A new window appears -> click Next

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Step 4: Select the capacity for the drive to be divided, the default will be the maximum capacity of that hard drive-> Click Next to move to the next step.

(1024MB = 1GB)

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Step 5: Select the hard drive name, you can choose the character from AZ depending on your needs. The drive name will not be the same as other existing drives on the computer.

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Step 6: Format the partitioned removable hard drive. In the new window that appears, select Format this volume with… -> Next (required)

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Step 7: Click Finish. 

At the end of the process of creating a partition for the removable hard drive, check in This PC, the hard drive that has just been partitioned will appear.

5. Reformat the hard drive

If your removable hard drive is already in Disk Management, but you can't access it, it may have been partitioned using a different file system.

For example, you may have formatted the drive using the XFS file system from Linux or APFS on your Mac. Windows cannot read these file systems.

What you need to do is reformat the hard drive according to the NTFS standard so that Windows can recognize it.

Step 1: At the Desktop -> Manage

Step 2: Select Disk Management -> right-click the removable hard drive partition -> Formart -> File system according to NTFS standard

This process will erase all data stored on your portable hard drive. Therefore, this method only applies when the hard drive has no important data

With the above 5 ways, we hope to help you overcome the situation of the mobile hard drive not being recognized. But only applies to the case of logical failure of the removable hard drive. If the hard drive dies hardware such as: dead body, Bad sector, broken circuit . depending on the extent can be repaired. If you can't fix the error, go to the hard drive experts for repair.

Good luck!

Samuel Daniel

Update 21 April 2022