A drive not seen in File Explorer, Disk Management or Finder could have a variety of reasons for this. From a loose cable to a failing disk, here’s some ways to identify what the cause of this issue is and how to prevent turning a recoverable problem into one that isn’t.
Do not allow Windows to format/initialise your drive. This will likely indicate there is damage to the file system on the disk. Formatting/Initialising your drive will write over your files if they still exist.
There are several possible reasons why your drive isn’t being recognised by your computer. However these are generally the most common causes ranging from easiest to hardest.
A loose, damaged or under-powered cable or an old/overused USB enclosure may prevent a good working hard drive from showing up at all.
The hard drive will be recognised by your computer but it will have no letter (Windows) or it will not mount (Mac). Therefore, you cannot see it on your computer’s File Explorer or Finder.
Your hard drive is shown by your computer, however; it has been corrupted by damage to its file system. In this case, the operating system will offer to format your hard drive or display it as “RAW”.
Failure of the drive heads; Death of the Board; Firmware error etc. Usually indicated by clicking noises, slow access times or the entire drive disappearing during heavy usage.
The first step in troubleshooting your drive would be to ensure the basic things are working properly. If you cannot hear the drive making any noise (like clicking or grinding), then you may want to perform some preliminary checks for common problems.
Test a new cable, test a new port, test a new computer. For an external drive, try using a different power source or putting it in a different enclosure and see if that solves the problem.
Go to Disk Management (in Windows) or Disk Utility (on Mac). If you find your drive listed there, then the hardware is most likely alive.
Is it spinning up? Are you hearing any clicks? Are you hearing any beeps? Any unusual noises will require you to go to the next section of this guide and skip everything here.
If your drive starts to produce clicking sounds, doesn’t show up as being detected by your operating system, or gets slower, stop testing now and don’t attempt to test further. Each time you test further will decrease what’s able to be recovered.
The errors in these steps that turn a normal recovery into a difficult recovery.
On Mac computers, drives are hidden for various reasons. It is usually worth spending two minutes figuring out why it won’t show up before panicking. First, check your Finder settings. Go into Settings > Sidebar & General and make sure that external drives are visible. Next go into Disk Utility. From within Disk Utility go to View > Show All Devices. Look to see if your external drive shows up. If the drive shows up as greyed out, you should choose the volume you want to access and then try to “Mount” the volume. A volume that cannot be mounted usually indicates there are problems with either the APFS or HFS+ structure behind the volume, with the files intact. This is likely going to be a recovery project and not a dead drive. There are two common Mac specific pitfalls: External drives formatted with NTFS from a Windows computer will show up but will only allow you to view and not write (i.e. they’ll be half working). Also, unpowered hubs will starve desktop class external enclosures; connect these devices directly. If neither Disk Utility nor System Report indicate anything about your external drive, then it is either faulty internally or the USB bridge inside the enclosure is bad, and therefore needs to go onto a workbench rather than in another port.
The answers to the questions that are asked the most.
Most likely not. When you receive a “you need to format this disk” error it generally means that the file system was corrupted and it did not mean that your data was deleted. DO NOT FORMAT IT! Formatting is how you overwrite your data. The files can normally be recovered from the RAW volume.
Frequently, this issue is due to a damaged file system or a failed hard drive inside the enclosure. As well, if the drive is now slow, clicking or disconnecting itself, STOP USING IT NOW. We can often recover from the physical drive even when Windows/macOS cannot read it.
Only if the physical drive is still good. CHKDSK writes changes back to the physical drive so running it on a physical drive that is failing could potentially decrease what we can recover. If the physical drive is clicking, slow or showing no signs of life, do not run it. Have the data recovered from the physical drive first.
Yes, as well, we do this routinely. We use specialised imaging tools to read your hard drive directly from the hardware which allows us to successfully recover lost files regardless of whether Windows or macOS will recognise or allow you to attach (mount) the hard drive.
If your hard drive will not show up, or if it shows up as RAW, or asks to be formatted...do NOT format the drive. Please bring it into our office for a complimentary diagnostic and we will attempt to recover your lost information.