How to Fix USB Drive Not Showing in Windows 11 & Windows 10
There are certain reasons of USB drive to get not recognized.
USB drive not showing in PC
It is not an unusual issue with computer users when they
plug any external storage device in their PCs that it doesn’t work sometimes
and not recognized by the Windows, especially Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 users &
even now Windows 11 users face the same issue. There are certain reasons of USB
drive to get not recognized. Although often it is missing in File Explorer, it
appears in Disk Management.
But you don’t have to worry about it, this post will help
you determine the issue and possibly fix it. So, let’s get started…
Contents
Fix USB drive issue from Disk Management
First of all, you need to check whether your USB drive
appears in Disk Management or not. To do this, follow these steps:
Step 1: Click on ‘This PC’ icon on your desktop.
Step 2: With the right-click navigate to ‘Manage’ and click.
Step 3: Find the ‘Storage’ from left-side bar and expand it
if it isn’t.
Step 4: Now, click on ‘Disk Management'.
Here, in the list, you can find prominently your USB storage.
If your USB drive appears in Disk Management, due to some internal errors it may
disappear from File Explorer like file system error, driver out of date or letter
conflict. Below I have queued up few solutions. Kindly take a look and fix by
yourself the issue of the USB drive not showing up in Windows 11/10/8.1/7.
Solution 1: Try Another USB Slot
Before you go with any repairing or formatting procedure,
make sure this is not the problem of your USB port as it is the most common
problem that prevents USB drive to appear in the computer or not being
recognized by Windows because of the port issue. It is recommended to check
your USB port as it is the simplest way that can prevent you to take any
troubleshoot.
So, try to plug your USB drive in another port if it is not
accessible to the first one. It is good if it gets detected by changing the port
or reinserting in the same port, then you don’t need to go with any other procedure.
If you are still facing the same issue, try to do below steps.
Solution 2: Update Disk Driver
USB drive not showing up or not working issues most probably
because of being out of dated your disk drivers or missing any internal file. So,
to fix you need to update your disk drivers by following below steps:
Step 1: Click on ‘This PC’ icon on your desktop.
Step 2: With the right-click navigate to ‘Manage’ and click.
Step 3: Find ‘Device Manager’ under ‘System Tools’
Step 4: Expand ‘Disk drives’ and right-click the drive that
has issue.
Step 5: Now, click on ‘Update driver’
After the 5th step, you will be asked for two options (automatic
& manual). You will have to opt the first one Search Automatically for
drivers for automatic update process. Make sure your PC is connected to
internet otherwise it will not proceed. In a while, the driver should be updated,
and your need to reboot your PC.
Now, check out your File Explorer whether your USB drive appears
there, however, you may also see the popup of successfully connected. Otherwise,
try to reinsert your USB drive and check if it’s visible in File Explorer.
Solution 3: Reinstall Disk Driver
Following the solution 1, if you are still facing the same
issue, try this one that might answer your query why USB is
not showing up in Windows 11/10/8.1/7.
Here you have to reinstall the disk drive by removing it
first.
You don’t need to follow another pattern, just follow the steps
from Solution 1 except last one.
Step 1: Click on ‘This PC’ icon on your desktop.
Step 2: With the right-click navigate to ‘Manage’ and click.
Step 3: Find ‘Device Manager’ under ‘System Tools’
Step 4: Expand ‘Disk drives’ and right-click the drive that
has issue.
Step 5: Now, click on ‘Uninstall device’ and confirm by
clicking ‘Uninstall’ in the prompted box.
Step 6: As the process completes, you need to reboot your PC
unplugging your USB drive.
Step 7: Reinsert your USB drive as the device restarts.
As you finish the last step (Step 7) the drive will be
installed automatically, and you will see the popup from the right side of the pane.
As the process gets done, go to File Explorer and manage your drive.
Solution 4: Format USB Drive to Fix System Error
If solution 2 and 3 don’t work or your USB drive not showing
up on Windows 11/10/8.1/7 still, it might be the cause of file system error. In
this case, your drive will be inaccessible and will be shown as a RAW drive. Also,
plugging in your device in this case, you might be prompted to format it. Therefore,
you cease one option now to resolve your query why USB is not showing up in
Windows 11/10/8.1/7.
As your USB drive requires repairing, you need to go ahead
with formatting option but before you go with this, make sure you have
recovered your data as this option erases the total data from your USB drive.
To recover data from RAW USB drive, there are
certain free and open-source applications available in the market. Check out
the best one after considering the reviews. After recovering the files, you can
format your USB drive choosing NTFS or FAT32.
How to format USB Drive:
If you have decided finally to format your USB drive in
order to run on your Windows or any other OS, below are instructions to format
USB drive.
Step 1: Go to ‘This PC’
Step 2: Find your RAW USB drive, if it’s visible there
Step 3: Right-click on it and click ‘Format’
You may also have popup prompting to format your USB drive when
you plugged in it. Another option to format the drive is from ‘Disk Management’
(to go Disk Management, see the beginning paragraphs) where you can find your
RAW USB drive and find the format option clicking it.
USB drive not Showing because of Letter Conflict
Besides this, sometimes despite of all good USB drive has
the issue of not showing it occurs due to letter conflict. You might have noticed
that each drive and partition have a letter like C: D: E: F: etc. but when you
insert any Removable disk, these letters may confront the new one, usually this
issue takes place when you have certain partitions that lead to the issue in
allocating the new letter for removable device. To resolve this confrontation, you
must need to go to ‘Disk Management’. Here click your USB drive and select Change
Drive Letter & Paths...>Change…>(Scroll for the new letter)>OK.
All done.
I hope this post helped you to recover your USB drive and
you found the answer to your query of not showing up USB drive in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows
10, Windows 11 etc.
Note: mostly such issues take place when you plug your drive into unprotected or malicious devices previously that even sometimes cause losing or corrupting your drive data.
