External hard drive not showing in Folders

[Ganjoni]

I have an external Toshiba 3.0 USB hard drive. I formatted it on my Panasonic tv to record some films. I am now trying to reformat it to use on my laptop to back up files. When I plug into my laptop, it shows up under My Computer, but not in Folders. Anyone know what the problem might be and how to solve it?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, Ganjoni!

I'd recommend you check how the external HDD is recognized and if it's listed as healthy with the appropriate file system in Disk Management in Windows. Sharing a screenshot might actually be really helpful!
If everything seems normal with the external drive in Disk Management, I'd suggest you right-click on it and try to change the drive letter assignment. This should make your drive accessible through the File/Windows explorer again.
Always make sure you backup your data to at least one more location (storage device). Having only one copy of your files is not a backup solution!

Keep me posted if you encounter any further issues with it.
Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Ganjoni]

Welcome to the TH community, Ganjoni!

I'd recommend you check how the external HDD is recognized and if it's listed as healthy with the appropriate file system in Disk Management in Windows. Sharing a screenshot might actually be really helpful!
If everything seems normal with the external drive in Disk Management, I'd suggest you right-click on it and try to change the drive letter assignment. This should make your drive accessible through the File/Windows explorer again.
Always make sure you backup your data to at least one more location (storage device). Having only one copy of your files is not a backup solution!

Keep me posted if you encounter any further issues with it.
Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

Hi SuperSoph

Many thanks for your Super recommendation. The disk was showing up as healthy but unallocated. I right clicked and only option was to create new simple volume. I did so and this enabled me to allocate a drive letter.

Thanks again.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi SuperSoph

Many thanks for your Super recommendation. The disk was showing up as healthy but unallocated. I right clicked and only option was to create new simple volume. I did so and this enabled me to allocate a drive letter.

Thanks again.

Glad to help you out, Ganjoni!
I just hope you didn't have any important data that had been formatted during that procedure.
If you plan to use the external HDD on both the TV and your laptop, make sure you have a compatible file system with both devices. Some TVs fail to recognize NTFS-formatted drives, so be careful. Keeping a backup of the data on the external somewhere else as well is good way to prevent any potential data loss in the future.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD