Hi.
I have been using my HDD since a long time but recently it has been showing an error saying external hard drive not detected. What can be the issue? What are the steps to resolve the problem?
Hi.
The error such as external hard drive not detected is seen when the ports of the USB are dead, there are partition issues on the PC, a wrong file system is being used or issues with the driver. The steps to solve the issue are-
1) Plug-in the USB into the PC first
2) Press windows key+R to open the run dialog box and type diskmgmt.msc to open the disk management tool. Click on enter
3) The disk management window will open which will show your USB listed
4) If you see the USB mentioned, then click on it and format it to make it accessible
5) However, if the USB is not mentioned, then there is something wrong with the port. Try to plug it in some other port. The, try to connect the USB to the computer.
6) You can try plugging in the USB in some other device to check if the port is not working or there is something wrong with the USB itself
7) You can also check if there is something wrong with the driver itself by pressing Windows key+R, opening the run dialog box and typing devmgmt.msc. Press enter
8) Look in the disk drives and see if there is an exclamation mark present or not. If yes, then there is something wrong with the drive fixing which is tricky so it is better that you consult an expert
Hope we helped.
If the problem is with your external hard drive, it can be a problem with the USB cable, problem with the hard drive itself, or a problem with the USB port. Different from the internal hard drive used by your computer to run the operating system which requires detecting in the BIOS, an external hard drive doesn’t require this.
An external hard drive uses a USB cable to connect to the computer instead of the native ribbon cable used by internal hard drive. If your computer can’t detect your external hard drive, make sure the USB cable is securely connected to the external hard drive. If it can’t be detected on one USB port, try transferring the drive to another port.
Normally, a CPU includes four USB ports at the back so try using them one after the other. If none of the ports worked, try using a different USB cable. The only way to check an external hard drive for errors is to use a working USB cable.
