The Windows 10 operating system is known to flag minor errors from time to time, such as with the man­age­ment of disk drives. But issues can also arise when using hard drives. For example, a hard drive that has already been used for a long time or one that has recently been purchased might not be detected. We explain some of the possible reasons for these errors and how you can fix them using examples.

Note

Any kind of trou­bleshoot­ing with disk drives will be sim­pli­fied the more familiar you are with the topics of “disk drive recovery” and “backups”. Some external hard drives will also reappear if they are simply re­con­nect­ed to the computer through another USB port.

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Me­chan­i­cal causes

If a hard drive is not rec­og­nized, first check the con­nec­tion between the hard drive and the USB or SATA port on the computer. Is the fit tight, and are the con­nec­tors plugged in deep enough – both on the hard drive and on the computer? Since USB was in­tro­duced, there have been many types of con­nec­tors. The most common external con­nec­tors right now are the standard USB-A and the newer USB-C. In­ter­nal­ly, disk drives are mostly connected through SATA con­nec­tors.

For external hard drives, the variety of con­nec­tors is larger but due to high data transfer rates the trend is pointing towards USB-C con­nec­tors. Users no longer have to pay attention to the ori­en­ta­tion of the connector when plugging it into a device. Man­u­fac­tur­ers offer a guar­an­teed number of plug cycles for USB con­nec­tors. With mini-USB and USB-C, that number is around 10,000, for example. Faulty USB con­nec­tors may thus be an option, but this is rarely the cause. This also applies to USB sticks with a large storage capacity that are used as hard drives.

Fact

With 10,000 plug cycles and two uses on an average workday, a USB-C connector has an expected duration of around 22 years.

As such, a hard drive will not be rec­og­nized if a defective USB or SATA cable is being used to connect the drive to the computer. Trans­portable hard drives are often carried around with the cable wrapped around it, which could lead to breakages in the cable. You can just try out another suitable USB cable if you suspect faulty wiring to be the cause. Fur­ther­more, there are USB cables that are only used for charging devices, and these cannot be used for data transfer.

Tip

Keep USB cables with their ap­pro­pri­ate devices, in order to avoid the need to fre­quent­ly try out different ones. You could also use a color code or labels, for example, by creating little flags out of trans­par­ent tape and tiny pieces of paper.

An un­rec­og­nized hard drive could also be defective. With older models, this is no­tice­able through clicking or buzzing sounds coming from the device. Defects in SSD models can become evident if the device heats up or if its working speed slows down a lot. But sometimes it’s not at all apparent what the issue may be. Even SSDs have a limited number of read and write cycles. However, if you format such a hard drive gen­er­ous­ly, there will be enough internal space to fall back on func­tion­ing memory cells.

A drive letter has not been assigned

In order for Windows to manage a storage device, it has to be reg­is­tered in the system. This happens through the as­sign­ment of a drive letter, such as “E:\”. It is possible for Windows to not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly assign this letter on its own, because it presumes that all letters have already been assigned or that the desired letter is already being used. This could also cause a hard drive to not be detected and points to an internal Windows problem. A format that is not Windows-com­pat­i­ble, such as a Mac OS format, could prevent a drive letter from being assigned.

Tip

Before you begin making changes to an un­rec­og­nized hard drive, it is important that you back up your data, possibly using another computer with the ap­pro­pri­ate operating system.

Here is how you can assign a drive letter:

Open Windows “Disk Man­age­ment”:

  • Right-click on “This PC” in File Explorer > click on “Manage” in the menu bar.
  • Search Windows using the term “Disk Man­age­ment,” and then select “Create and format hard disk par­ti­tions.”

This will open the “Computer Man­age­ment” window. In the left-hand menu, click on “Disk Man­age­ment” under “Data storage.”

Image: Windows Computer Management showing Disk Management
All connected drives are visible in Disk man­age­ment. Disk 2 without a letter is displayed with a hatch pattern after it is clicked.

You can now see all reg­is­tered drives with their re­spec­tive statuses rep­re­sent­ed graph­i­cal­ly, including the drive that has no letter and only the name “Volume.”

Image: Active context menu in Windows Disk Management
Right-clicking on the blue bar opens the context menu for the un­rec­og­nized drive.

Right-clicking on the blue bar above the drive in question will open a context menu. In this menu, click on “Change Drive Letter and Paths...”

Image: Assigning a drive letter in Windows Disk Management
Click on “Add...” to assign a drive letter.

Click on the “Add...” button in the window that appears, in order to open the window for choosing a drive letter to assign.

Image: Choosing a drive letter in Disk Management
Apart from those already being used, you can choose any drive letter.

The system will suggest a letter, but you can choose any other available letter and then confirm by clicking on “OK”.

Tip

If you would like to keep using certain disk drives, such as an SSD drive or a USB stick, with the same drive letter, then avoid choosing it when assigning a letter to another drive.

Image: Windows Disk Management with recognized disk drives
Disk 2 “Volume” has now been assigned the letter “E:”.

The drive has now been assigned a letter and can be used just like any other internal or external drive, without any con­straints.

A file system is missing from the disk drive

Another cause for the error of a hard drive not being rec­og­nized could be a missing file system. For Windows, this should be a NTFS (“New Tech­nol­o­gy File System”) or a FAT (“File Al­lo­ca­tion Table”). In Disk Man­age­ment, you can open the context menu by right-clicking on the blue bar above the un­rec­og­nized drive and then clicking on “Format...”.

Image: Windows Disk Management showing file system creation
Right-clicking on the bar above the drive displayed with a hatch pattern will make a context menu appear, from which you can then launch the window to format the drive.

Either leave the suggested volume label or choose a new one (1), choose the file system to be used (2), check the box to perform a quick format (3), and then click on “OK.” After Windows has completed the process, the formatted Disk 2 with its drive letter will be ready to be used.

The disk drive has no par­ti­tions

Though rare, the required partition could be missing from a new hard drive after it has been connected. This can be resolved once again through the context menu in Disk Man­age­ment.

Image: Windows Disk Management showing the menu for creating partitions
Right-clicking on the bar above the un­rec­og­nized drive will display the context menu from which the window to partition Disk 2 can be launched.

Select the file system (1) and either the default al­lo­ca­tion unit size or choose one yourself (2). If necessary, you can also add a volume label (4), and then begin the process by clicking on “Next” (4).

Image: Windows Disk Management showing three recognized disk drives
The drive “Volume (F:)” is par­ti­tioned correctly and online.

Once Windows has ter­mi­nat­ed the process, the par­ti­tioned drive with its letter will be available to you for use as Disk 2. When par­ti­tion­ing a large drive, it is also possible to set up several par­ti­tions, for example, “Data (F:),” “Backup (G:),” “Archive (H:),” and so on. You can also determine the size of each partition for yourself.

The hard drive has not been installed

If a hard drive has been deleted or it is brand new, equally ready par­ti­tions, file systems, or drive letters may not exist yet – every­thing has to be set up again, and the un­rec­og­nized hard drive will need to be ini­tial­ized.

Image: Windows Disk Management showing a drive that is not initialized
Disk 2 is not rec­og­nized due to a faulty ini­tial­iza­tion.

The non-ini­tial­ized drive is still displayed, but it will also show a colored warning marker and the status “unknown.” You will be able to launch the context menu for the un­rec­og­nized drive by right-clicking on the black bar.

Image: Windows Disk Management showing unknown Disk 2
In the context menu for the unknown drive, click on “Ini­tial­ize Disk.”

This will open a new window with the settings for ini­tial­iz­ing the disk.

Image: Windows Disk Management showing disk initialization
In Disk Man­age­ment, leave the default partition style GPT (1) and confirm by clicking on “OK” (2).

After you have done this, the ini­tial­ized Disk 2 can then be par­ti­tioned as a disk drive and be assigned a drive letter. It will then be visible and online in Disk Man­age­ment and File Explorer.

For more in­for­ma­tion, consult our guide on hard drives that are not showing up, which includes more tips and tricks for Windows hard drives.

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