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Hardware

USB drive or external disk not recognised

A drive that is silent in Explorer is often fine — the port, the cable or the drive letter is the problem. A drive that clicks is a different matter.

Easy10–20 min6 steps

Read before you start

If the drive clicks, beeps or disappears while copying, stop using it and do not run recovery tools on it. Every further read can cost files — bring it in first.

This guide is for you if

  • Nothing appears when the drive is plugged in
  • A "USB device not recognised" message appears
  • The drive shows but asks to be formatted

Step by step

Work top to bottom

0 of 6 steps done

  1. Change the port and drop the hub

    Use a port on the machine itself, not a hub or a monitor dock, and try a different cable. Plenty of "dead" drives are a tired cable or an overloaded hub.

    Front-panel desktop ports are often weaker than the rear ones.

  2. Listen to the drive

    A quiet spin or no sound at all means power or cable. Clicking, ticking or repeated spin-up means the drive itself is failing — stop here and bring it in.

  3. Look for it in Disk Management or Disk Utility

    If it appears there but not in Explorer, it may have no drive letter or an unreadable file system. Assign a letter rather than formatting anything.

    Never accept "format the disk" if the data on it matters.

  4. Test it on another machine

    A second computer tells you whether the fault follows the drive or stays with the port. It is the fastest way to know what to fix.

  5. Check power on a desktop drive

    Large desktop drives need their own power supply. Confirm the power brick is connected and its light is on.

  6. Bring it in if it holds something you cannot lose

    Recovery work on a failing external drive is routine for us and far safer than a consumer tool that writes to the drive while it reads.

    Bring the cable and the power supply with the drive.