External hard drives not recognized by Windows 10.

[BadRico]

My Maxtor external hard drive is not showing under This PC, but is under Device Manager. Updating the driver comes back as driver is up to date. Changing Bios setting between UEFI and Legacy do not make a difference. Using a different USB port does not make a difference.
I can get full access to the drive if I boot up LinuxMint from a USB stick.
Microsoft says this is a manufacturers driver problem.
Acer says this is Windows problem. Any ideas?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there BadRico,

Is there a yellow exclamation mark in front of the drive in Device Manager?

My suggestion would be to go to the laptop's manufacturer website and reinstall the USB drivers.
Another thing you can do is to go to Device Manager -> uninstall the drive -> plug it out -> reboot system -> plug it back in.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[jabooker]

I am able to access my Maxtor external hard drive, but Windows 10 will not let me default my documents, pictures, or videos to this drive via system storage settings, despite allowing me to move them via Windows Explorer. One issue may be that I redesignated the drive as H:\ .

 

[spankmon]

Some of my external hard drives don't work for both Linux and Windows. But they work for either one... exclusively. I think it's because of old firmware in the drive. My solution has been to buy a new enclosure for the external drive (about $20). Don't know if that appeals to you, but it works for me.

 

[RussGriechen]

Install Microsoft's Seagate Media App. It will enable Windows to recognize the drive.

 

[Wild Blue Iris]

UNEXPECTED SOLUTION!

I was unable to get my desktop or my laptop to recognize an external samsung dvd player. It showed up in the device manager in the section for usb devices but had the yellow triangle/exclamation point. A pop up window also said the device was unrecognizable. I couldn't successfully find or update the driver for it.

I tried running the troubleshooting wizard to no avail, tried adding the line to regedit that I have seen suggested a couple places and also tried rebooting several times.

I wanted to try again a week or so later but the cable was misplaced. My son had it and said he borrowed it for an external hard drive but couldn't get the hard drive recognized on his win10 pc.

I found another y-split cable in the house (for an Amazon basic external dvd player) and wa-lah, the external samsung dvd drive and the Amazon basic were both recognizable. (So I presume my son's hard drive will also now work with this cable.)

The non-functioning cable had worked with other operating systems but not with Windows 10. So I ordered a couple new Y cables from Amazon (third party brand).

 

[Wild Blue Iris]

UNEXPECTED SOLUTION!

I was unable to get my desktop or my laptop to recognize an external samsung dvd player. It showed up in the device manager in the section for usb devices but had the yellow triangle/exclamation point. A pop up window also said the device was unrecognizable. I couldn't successfully find or update the driver for it.

I tried running the troubleshooting wizard to no avail, tried adding the line to regedit that I have seen suggested a couple places and also tried rebooting several times.

I wanted to try again a week or so later but the cable was misplaced. My son had it and said he borrowed it for an external hard drive but couldn't get the hard drive recognized on his win10 pc.

I found another y-split cable in the house (for an Amazon basic external dvd player) and wa-lah, the external samsung dvd drive and the Amazon basic were both recognizable. (So I presume my son's hard drive will also now work with this cable.)

The non-functioning cable had worked with other operating systems but not with Windows 10. So I ordered a couple new Y cables from Amazon (third party brand).

 

[edbo1976]

Some of my external hard drives don't work for both Linux and Windows. But they work for either one... exclusively. I think it's because of old firmware in the drive. My solution has been to buy a new enclosure for the external drive (about $20). Don't know if that appeals to you, but it works for me.

Would this work in converting a Maxtor One Touch drive to Windows 10 compliant? I just upgraded to Windows 10. The OS can see the Maxtor drive but the Maxtor Manager says no One Touch Drives were found. I can see the drive from file manager and see the Maxtor system files but can't see the back up files. The device manager says there is 385 GB of data on the drive but I can't see the files. I can do a chkdsk on the drive and it does talk to the PC. Have reloaded the driver software several times. I'm thinking I may have to open the old computer and take its hard drive out if all else fails, but not sure if it is Windows 10 compliant either. Any suggestion would help.

 

[Swestnr]

Hi there BadRico,

Is there a yellow exclamation mark in front of the drive in Device Manager?

My suggestion would be to go to the laptop's manufacturer website and reinstall the USB drivers.
Another thing you can do is to go to Device Manager -> uninstall the drive -> plug it out -> reboot system -> plug it back in.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[Swestnr]

This worked for my Seagate 3TB external harddrive on Windows 10.
Big ups!! Thanks!!

 

[robobass]

This has plagued me for years. I just discovered a solution - for me at least. I could find the missing drives and partitions in Device Manager/Disc Drives, but they wouldn't show up in Explorer. If you get this far, double click on the drive, and assign it a drive letter. If there are partitions which are missing, then go to Volumes, and click populate. Then click on the missing partitions and assign them drive letters.

 

[Articlynx]

I am able to access my Maxtor external hard drive, but Windows 10 will not let me default my documents, pictures, or videos to this drive via system storage settings, despite allowing me to move them via Windows Explorer. One issue may be that I redesignated the drive as H:\ .

same goddam problem under windows 10. My solution go back to windows 7 and install a duel boot configuration with Linux Mint. Windows 10 is really not worth the hassle.

 

[benjamin_78]

My Maxtor external hard drive is not showing under This PC, but is under Device Manager. Updating the driver comes back as driver is up to date. Changing Bios setting between UEFI and Legacy do not make a difference. Using a different USB port does not make a difference.
I can get full access to the drive if I boot up LinuxMint from a USB stick.
Microsoft says this is a manufacturers driver problem.
Acer says this is Windows problem. Any ideas?

 

[benjamin_78]

ok what did to fix my hdd not opening or identifying on win 10is go to file explorer at bottom of screen. click this pc. at top of page click computer and then manage. on the new screen click storage disk management. now wait a few seconds this could take a while to load. look at the bottom where the blocks are. blue is functioning and black or grey are not active or identified drive spaces. left click to select drive and then right click to open menu. be careful not to delete anything important. now look at the drives with the memory of your external hdd. once you found; if it is in black left click to select and then right click, then left click make volume or create volume(something like that) then click next until screen closes. if this does not work go back through this again and click same drive and delete the volume and then restart computer and plug drive back in and the go back to create volume and it should work. the tech people at staples couldnt figure it out. if you ever buy something from stapes, it must be return in under 14days. i figured out how to do this on my own and it worked when i had no hope, but be warned i had no data on drive so this method could potentially damage any data. so if you have something important, try on another computer first before risking data corruption.