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Backing up your data is important. Storing information in the cloud has become second nature to most, but there’s nothing like having it all backed up on a physical device. External drives are simple: you plug them in, they appear on your computer, and you can drag files onto them. But what happens when your drive doesn’t appear when you plug it into your computer?

There could be several reasons why your storage device is not showing up. If the disk is dead with all your data on it, you might have a problem. But don’t panic just yet. Here are some troubleshooting steps you can take before you declare all is lost.

1. Make sure it is plugged in and powered on

Just because you plugged the drive into your computer doesn’t necessarily mean it’s getting the power it needs. While some drives can draw enough power from your computer’s USB port, others, especially larger drives that are not intended to be portable, like the Western Digital My book– may require wall power to start. If your drive came with a power adapter but you haven’t plugged it in, try plugging it in (and pressing the power button, if there is one). If it comes with two USB plugs, make sure they are both plugged into your PC. With any luck, your drive will appear normally once it gets the juice it needs.

2. Restart your computer

Have you tried turning it off and on again? It’s a cliché at this point, but resetting your computer can really help. If the processor is under a lot of stress or some other unknown problem occurs, this may prevent the player from displaying. Giving the system a reset can give the computer a second chance to recognize the drive. First, unplug the drive and then restart the computer. Do not plug it back in immediately; give the system time to boot and try the drive again.

3. Try a different cable, port or PC

If the drive still doesn’t work, unplug it and try another port. It might just be finicky with your specific drive. If plugged into a USB 3.0 port, try a USB 2.0 port. If it’s plugged into a USB hub, try plugging it directly into the PC instead. It’s also possible that there is a problem with the USB cord, so try the player again with an alternate connection.

You can also try it on another computer. If you’re a multi-platform household, I especially recommend trying it on a computer running a different operating system. So if you can’t view the drive on a Windows PC, try plugging it into a Mac, or vice versa. It is possible that the player is simply not working formatted for computer you are trying to use and you will need to copy this data to a drive formatted for cross compatibility.

A more serious problem is that the port in question could be down. If the drive is running on a different port or computer, you may need to do additional work to repair USB port.

4. Update your drivers

Sometimes Windows encounters driver issues that make a device unrecognizable. Open the Start menu, type “Device Manager” and open the Device Manager menu. Expand the list to Disk drives And Universal serial bus to see if your external drive appears. If you see its entry with a yellow exclamation mark, right-click on it and choose Properties– there may be an error code you can look for. You can also go to Driver and try updating or uninstalling the driver and restarting your PC.

Usually, external drives just use Windows’ built-in USB and hard drive drivers, so this probably won’t fix a temperamental drive, but it’s worth a shot. (You can also try downloading drivers from the drive manufacturer’s website, but again, it’s probably time-consuming.) our guide to updating your drivers for more details on this process.

On a Mac, open Launchpad > Other > System Informationthen unfold it USB list to see if the drive you plugged in was detected. Unfortunately, there is no way to update individual drivers on a Mac. Instead, you can simply update macOS itself. To do this, open System Settings > General > Software Update Or (System Preferences > Software Update on older systems) and see if an update is available to install.

A final option available here is to try resetting the NVRAM, which stores peripheral data, and see if that resolves the issues. If you have an Intel-based Mac, turn it off and restart it. During startup, hold Option+Command+P+R until the Apple logo appears twice. An Apple Silicon Mac just needs a normal reset.

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5. Enable and Format Drive in Disk Management

If your drive is powered on but still doesn’t appear in File Explorer, it’s time to do some digging. Open the Start menu, type “disk management” and click Create and format hard drive partitions. Once Disk Management loads, scroll down to see if your disk appears in the list. If so, make sure it is online and formatted.

If it is offline, right-click the disk name (e.g. “Disk 2”) and choose Online. If the disk has not been formatted (it will say “Unallocated” under a black bar), right-click it and choose New simple volume. This will also solve the problem if the disk is formatted for another operating system. Be warned that formatting will erase all data on it.

Finally, if your disk is online and formatted, but does not show a drive letter next to its name, right-click the volume and choose Change drive letter and paths to add a drive letter. If you’re lucky, one of these simple steps should get your new drive up and running.

On a Mac, you will need to open Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility to display a similar menu. If it appears but is grayed out and inaccessible, you may need to manually mount the drive. Select the drive, then choose To go up. If the drive does not mount or has no visible partition, the data could be corrupted. Click on the FIRST AID button to see if macOS can repair the drive.

6. Clean the disk and start from scratch

In some more specific cases, the disk will appear in Disk Management, but simply formatting the disk will not work. This is extremely common with SD cards formatted with Linux distributions for the Raspberry Pi, for example.

To return your disk to its full capacity, you will need to run the Windows “clean” command, which will return the disk to a completely unformatted state. Again, this will erase everything on it, so only continue if you have no other options and make sure you are wiping the correct disk, otherwise you could lose a lot of data.

Open the Start menu, type “diskpart” and press Enter to open the run command. When the prompt appears, type “list disk” and press Enter to see the disks connected to your system. If you see the drive in question appear (pay close attention to its size), write down its name. We will use “Disk 1” in this example.

Type “select disk 1” and press Enter to select the disk you want to clean. Finally, type “clean” and press Enter. This will erase the disk, in which case you can follow the steps above to format it from the Disk Management console.

Although Mac users do not have a widely accepted equivalent to diskpart, some have noted that the diskutil command works the same way. You can open Launchpad > Other > Terminal to enter the order.

7. Remove and test the bare disk

If none of the above options work, you should remove the drive from its external case and test the drive alone. The components that convert the SATA drive to USB can fail, meaning the drive might work just fine if you connect it another way.

For anyone with a desktop computer and the tech know-how, you can open it up and plug the drive directly into your motherboard. Alternatively, you can purchase an external SATA to USB docking station Or pregnantplug your bare drive into it, then connect it to your PC via USB.

If this works, then your old case (or its power supply) may be broken. If your disk is still not recognized, your disk may be dead. Try another drive (if you have one) to confirm once and for all if your external hard drive is at fault.

A dead drive may be beyond repair and simply needs to be replaced. Check with the player manufacturer to see if the device is under warranty. Otherwise, take a look at PCMag’s roundup of the best hard drives, SSD, wireless readersAnd hard drives. We also have a roundup of the best readers for Mac.