New hard drive not showing up in my computer vista

Step 3. From the new pop-up dialog box, choose the Assign the following drive letter option and pick a letter from the drop-down list. Once you choose the letter, click on the OK button, and the drive letter will then be assigned to the partition.

After you successfully complete assigning a drive letter, you can now restart your PC system and check if the problem is now resolved or not. If you suspect that a corrupted file or unsupported system is the root cause of the error, you can try disk initialization.

To do so, follow the below steps:. On the Disk Management window, you will see a list of all connected hard drives to the PC. Choose the drive that is unallocated and unknown. Right-click on it and select Initialize Disk. Select one and click OK. GPT is usually recommended, but you can read up about these two online before choosing. The window will redirect to the Disk Management window.

Select the initialized hard drive listed as Online and Basic and right-click. Choose New Simple Volume. Click on Next. Format the drive in the simple volume by following the wizard. Most users prefer the NFTS file system. Perform a quick format. When the progress is done, you can see the hard drive on the File Explorer. As an outdated device driver can also be a cause, it is highly advisable to update it from the drive manufacturer support by following the below steps:. Choose Windows Update and then click the Check for updates selection.

Wait for the update to complete. If an update is published in the Windows Update service, updates will be downloaded and installed automatically. Expand the branch to look for the hard drive in question.

When prompt says the command is executed successfully, close Command window and restart your PC. Afterward, you can check whether the hard drive shows up or not. Most of the time, if your hard drive is a brand new disk, you need to initialize it first.

Then, create a new partition on it and enable it in BIOS. Go to "Disk Management", right-click your new hard disk, and choose "Initialize Disk".

Right-click on the unallocated space in your new hard drive and select "New Simple Volume Set the volume size, drive letter, and file system as NTFS for the new hard drive. Hence, checking whether your hard drive is disabled in BIOS is necessary. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to choose "Integrated Peripherals" and hit "Enter".

If you are having a similar issue on a USB flash drive or external disk, all the provided fixes above can help. Or, you can also follow the links below for help. Works to: Fix external hard drive not showing up or not detected by Windows PC error. Then, you can pick an appropriate fix to make your external hard drive show up on PC and work normally again:.

So, the solutions are quite clear now. Just follow the right method to make your new hard drive detectable and show up on your computer again. Change the connection between the external hard drive and computer, and you can make the external disk showing up. If nothing shows up, it's the external hard drive itself having a detection issue on your PC. Try the following 3 fixes to make the drive show up again. It will scan and find all your lost files.

Applies to: Fix external hard drive not showing up and has a yellow exclamation mark in Disk Management. When the external hard drive has an outdated drive driver, it won't show up in File Explorer. It appears with a yellow exclamation under the Disk driver section. Right-click the problematic external drive and select "Uninstall device". Click "OK" to confirm. Restart your computer and reconnect the external hard drive to your PC. Applies to: Fix external hard disk not showing up or not detected by Windows PC.

If you notice the external hard drive works with one computer but fails to be detected by another, you can try to update the USB Controller driver of the computer in which the hard drive is not showing up.

Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software" and restart your computer. If the above fixes don't fully resolve your issue on the not showing up external hard disk, don't worry.

You may get further help from the below-listed tutorial page. Check it out to find the best solution for your issue. It might happen that a Toshiba external hard drive is not working in Windows, be it not showing up, not recognized, or not showing files.

Follow along to identify your situation and fix your Toshiba hard drive. Sometimes, a hard drive may not show files although the files exist. Note that the files that are missing on hard drive are still recoverable. Files disappeared could be caused by the following reasons:. Run antivirus or malware clear software to remove all viruses and malware.

Format the hard drive to restore its full capacity and set NTFS as its file system. You are now good to use this drive and save files on it again. For more details, check out the article about the pen drive not showing files for help. In this guide, we explained to you why your hard drive or external hard drive is not showing up on Windows PC.

We also provided solutions and fixes to help you make the used external or internal hard drive, and new hard drives show up again without losing any data. What Is svchost. Best Smartwatches. Best Gaming Laptops. Best Smart Displays. Best Home Security Systems. Best External Solid State Drives. Best Portable Chargers. Best Phone Chargers. Best Wi-Fi Range Extenders. Best Oculus Quest 2 Accessories. Best iPad Air Cases. Awesome PC Accessories. Best Linux Laptops.

Best Wireless iPhone Earbuds. Best Bluetooth Trackers. Best eReaders. Best VPN. Browse All News Articles. Windows 11 Uninstall Clock. Teams Walkie-Talkie. PCI Express 6. Wordle Scams. T-Mobile iCloud Private Relay.