Fix an External Drive That Won't Show Up
You plug in a hard drive or USB stick and nothing happens. Here's how to find it and get it working, without losing your files.
Is the drive getting power?
Most drives have a light that comes on or flickers when connected. Larger desktop drives need their own power adapter plugged in. If there's no light at all, try another cable and port first.
FIXTry these in order
Open a step, try it, then tell us if it worked.
- Plug the drive directly into the computer, not a hub or keyboard port.
- Try a different USB port and, if you have one, a different cable.
- Try another computer. If it doesn't appear anywhere, the drive itself may be faulty.
Right-click the Start button and choose Disk Management. Look for your drive by its size.
- Shows but has no letter: right-click its partition, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths › Add, and pick a letter.
- Shows as “Offline”: right-click the disk name on the left and choose Online.
- Shows as “Unallocated” or “RAW”: the drive isn't formatted or is damaged. Formatting would erase it; see step 4 first.
Open Disk Utility (Applications › Utilities). Choose View › Show All Devices.
- Shows greyed out: select it and click Mount.
- Mounts but shows errors: select it and click First Aid.
- Also check Finder › Settings › Sidebar and make sure External disks is ticked.
Drives formatted for Mac (APFS or Mac OS Extended) don't show up properly on Windows, and NTFS drives are read-only on a Mac.
To use a drive on both, it needs to be exFAT. Reformatting erases the drive, so copy the files off first using the computer that can read it.
Open Device Manager, expand Disk drives and Universal Serial Bus controllers. If you see a yellow warning icon, right-click it and choose Uninstall device, then unplug the drive and restart.
If the drive clicks, beeps or isn't detected on any computer, stop using it and contact a data recovery service if the files matter. Repeated attempts can make things worse.
FAQCommon questions
Will formatting the drive delete my files?
Yes. Only format if the drive is empty or the files are backed up elsewhere.
Which format works on both Windows and Mac?
exFAT. It reads and writes on both systems without extra software.
My drive makes clicking noises. What does that mean?
Usually a mechanical failure. Unplug it and don't keep trying, as that can destroy the data. Contact a recovery specialist if the files matter.
Do I really need to eject drives?
It's safest. Unplugging while files are being written can corrupt them.