Resolved: Issue with Seagate External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows 10/11

How to Fix Seagate External Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows 10/11

"My 320 GB Seagate external hard drive is detected but not showing in My Computer. What should I do? It's detected in Device Manager, and in Disk Management, it shows as unallocated. Is there any way to fix this issue? Will I lose all data on the hard drive if I initialize it?"

Sometimes, when you connect the Seagate external hard drive to the computer, it fails to get recognized. As a result, the disk along with its folders and files becomes inaccessible. Well, a few have had this problem. Here, we will show you how to resolve the issue without losing data.

1. Update the Seagate hard drive driver

First of all, you need to check whether it shows up in Disk Management. If it does, you can proceed to the next step. If not, you should update the disk driver first to make the Seagate external hard drive recognized and displayed by Windows in Disk Management.

Step 1. Press Windows + R to open the “Run” window, then type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Step 2: In Device Manager, click the + next to Universal Serial Bus controllers. You should see a yellow exclamation point. Right-click it and select Update Driver Software.

Step 3: Click on "Search for driver software online..."

Step 4. Once done, restart your computer. The driver should install and load onto the computer automatically.

5. Go to “Disk Management” (right click on “My Computer” and go to Manage > Disk Management) and check if the Seagate drive is recognized as an external hard drive.

Sometimes, even if the hard drive is shown in Disk Management, it could be unallocated, RAW, or some weird characters like Unknown Disk Uninitialized. It's detected but not accessible, so you need to perform hard drive data recovery immediately this time.

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If your hard drive is having similar issues, you can try the following fixes.

How to Fix Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows

Whether it's a new or old hard drive, an internal or external one, what can you do if it's not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management? Learn how to make the hard drive visible again in Windows 11/10/8/7 without losing data following the methods below.

Recover Data from Seagate External Hard Drive

If your Seagate hard drive shows up as RAW or Unallocated, you need to format the hard drive to solve the problem. Since formatting will erase all data, we recommend that you recover your data to a secure location first. To perform data recovery, you can try using the Data Recovery Wizard tool. It works well for external hard drive data recovery, even if the disk won't open in your computer.

Download a data recovery tool immediately and follow this guide to protect your data.

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to the computer with a USB cable that works. Run the Data Recovery Wizard, and you should see your external hard drive listed under "External Devices". This software supports all major brands of external hard drives, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, LaCie, SanDisk, Samsung, etc.

Select your external hard drive and click the “Scan” button.

Select your WD external hard drive and click on "Scan".

Step 2: As the scan progresses, the software will find more and more lost and deleted data, which will be displayed in the scan results. The recovered data is well organized. You can quickly locate your target file/folder by file type, or search for it by exact filename in the search box.

Step 3: You can preview the files found by the scanning algorithm of the Data Recovery Wizard. Then, select the files and click 'Recover'. To avoid overwriting your data, we recommend saving the recovered data to a drive other than the original Seagate drive.

3. Reformat and partition a Seagate external hard drive

After performing Seagate external hard drive data recovery, you can format and partition the disk to initialize it and make it show up in your computer. Here are the detailed steps to reformat the Seagate external hard drive.

Step 1: Enter "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management", right-click on the disk partition that needs to be formatted, and select "Format".

Step 2. In the new window, you can set the file system and cluster size, then click OK.

Note: If you are also encountering the issue of USB flash drive not showing up on Mac, seek help online.

Bottom line

That's all about how to fix Seagate external hard drive not showing up issue. Start with the tricks we've provided to settle your problem right now!

Seagate External Hard Drive Not Showing Up: FAQ

If you have any questions, please read the FAQ below:

1. Why is my Seagate hard drive not showing up in Windows 10?

The following are the reasons why your hard drive is not showing up or recognized in Windows 10:

< li > Corrupted connection < /li > < li > Hard drive failure < /li > < li > Drive letter conflict < /li > < li > Outdated hard drive driver < /li > < li > Unallocated or uninitialized hard drive < /li > < li > Unsupported or corrupted file system < /li >

2. How can I make Windows 10 recognize my Seagate external hard drive?

Please follow these steps to display a Seagate external hard drive in Windows 10:

• Update Seagate hard drive drivers
• Recover data from Seagate external hard drive
• Reformat and partition Seagate external hard drive

3. How to fix the Seagate hard drive not working issue?

Rapid fixes for Seagate external hard drive not working:

• Try a different USB port on your computer. • If the current cable is damaged, use a new one. • Connect the drive to another computer to see if it's recognized. • Check if the drive's status light turns on (if it doesn't, the power adapter isn't getting power). • Try a different power outlet (for desktop hard drives).