external hard drive not showing up

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I have a USB hard drive that when I plug it in, I get the USB beep, but it is not showing up in windows explorer.
Suggestions on finding it appreciated
thanks

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Does it show in disk manager?

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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J.E.,

Did you hit the refresh button in explorer (if it was already open).

What make of USB drive is it? Does it need drivers? Check notifications for the finish installing drivers message.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Right click the Windows flag (bottom left corner) and select “Disk Management”. Does the disk show up?

cheers, Paul

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Right click the Windows flag (bottom left corner) and select “Disk Management”. Does the disk show up?

cheers, Paul

I do get an ‘initialize disk’ dialog box however
I am hesitant to do anything with this. Would I erase what’s on the disk if I initialized?
thanks.

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Try Nir Sofer’s free/portable USBDeview – Note that there’s both 32- and 64-bit versions. (See the note about downloading the USB ID‘s list into the same folder you extract USBDeview to if you want to see the vendor and product names of your USB device.)

USBDeview will show when the device is recognised by Windows plus what driver is used (in the Driver Filename column – which is usually Windows’ built-in). It will also show whether it needs to use ‘safe eject’ or can just be un-plugged.

At this point the device’s hardware controller has been recognised and the info sent over the USB interface, so the device should appear in Windows’ own Disk Management console.

If, at this point, the drive doesn’t appear in an Explorer window then listen for and feel (by checking for vibration) whether the drive has spun up. If you hear a clicking then there’s a problem with the HD’s actuator, resulting in the actuator arm just flicking continuously over the arm’s ‘park position’ rather than reading the disk.

Hope this helps…

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Speaking of hard drives (memory) is 4GB of RAM enough to run windows comfortably?

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Speaking of hard drives (memory) is 4GB of RAM enough to run windows comfortably?

4GB RAM is usually enough to run Windows comfortably.

But “Speaking of hard drives…” indicates to me you are confusing “memory” (RAM – Random Access Memory) with “storage”, i.e.: data stored on Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD).

But all modern operating systems provide functionality for “virtual memory” which involves temporary storage of data in a file on the computer’s HDD or SSD. W/ Windows (by default) it is the C:pagefile.sys file; IIRC Linux creates a “SWAP” partition for the same purpose, and it is much-the-same with Apple/Macintosh OSs.

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While 4GB might be ok, 8-16GB is even better, especially for Windows 8 & 10. And, thread starter, did that pesky usb stick ever get to work within your computer?

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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JE, hello.
I just faced this same problem. A different USB cable cured it. How come nobody mentioned it ?

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Potentially yes, but the initialize message may mean there isn’t anything on the disk. Do nothing is the best option at present.
What does Disk Manager show on the disk?

cheers, Paul

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