There is no doubt that Windows 10 is built to have smarter and faster responses when processing commands and requests. For instance, when you plug in a new hard –drive then it will automatically perform the necessary actions to integrate the new device to other components. However, this process sometimes becomes invulnerable and thus the system fails to detect the hard drive.

Why your Hard Drive is not showing Up On Windows 10?

Whether it is an old or new hard drive, if you are facing an error that Hard Drive is not showing on Windows 10 then these might be the reasons for it:

1: Incompatible /Corrupt Device Driver.

2: Corrupt or missing file system.

3: Drive letter is not assigned to the drive.

4: Missing partition.

5: Certain Windows update.

6: Problematic connection.

7: The file system is not supported or gets corrupted.

8: Drive letter conflict.

9: The Hard Drive Driver is outdated.

10: Hard Drive is unallocated or not initialized well.

11: Hard drive is damaged.

All the following errors can be fixed easily when you thoroughly read this article and follow the provided solutions to make your Hard Drive showing up on windows again.

How to fix hard drives not showing up on Windows 10?

If Windows 10 is not recognizing your hard drive then it’s time to get it fixed. In this guide, you will learn how to troubleshoot the issue by following the below-given steps. You need to learn the solution whether you are installing a new system or if you have already been running Windows 10 and it suddenly didn’t recognize your Hard Disk.

Learn these below-given steps for overcoming with this problem:

Solution 1- Check Your Hard Drive Needs Initializing:

The user might try to initialize a hard drive to fix the Hard Drive issue not showing on Windows 10 with the help of these given steps:

1: Firstly, press Windows + X and then select Disk Management.

2: Now, in Disk Management, you need to find the driver that is not initialized. Thus, it will appear unallocated.

3: Next, Right-click on the drive and then click Initialize Disk.

4: Here, you need to choose between an MBR (Master Boot Record) and GPT (GUID Partition Table). Also, it is advised to select GPT and then click Ok.

5: Once the process gets completed then you will get back to the main window.

6: Now, you will find that Hard Drive is listed as Basic and Online.

Solution 2- Create New Partition:

Once you have retrieved all your precious files, then you can create a new partition to make your hard-disk show-up and thus usable again on the computer.

1: First, you need to right-click This PC and then choose Manage and click Disk Management.

2: Now, right-click the un-allocated space of your hard-drive and then choose “Shrink Volume”

3: In New simple volume wizard, click “Next” to continue.

4: Now, select the volume size and then assign a drive letter to the volume and set NTFS (New Technology File System) as the file system by clicking “Next”.

5: Next, click Finish when Disk Management shows that it has creates a new volume on your Hard Drive.

Solution 3- Customize the New Partition:

If you are having a new external hard drive without partitioning then it will not be recognized by your computer. Therefore, you need to access Disk Management to check and create a new partition on that drive if necessary.

Follow these given steps to customize the new partition:

1: First, right-click This PC and then select Manage.

2: Click Disk Management from the left menu.

3: Now, you will see the Hard Drive in Disk Management. However, it has no partition then you need to right-click the unallocated space and click New Simple Volume and thus follow the instructions to create a new partition based on the user requirements.

Solution 4- Add a Drive letter:

If the fixed Hard Drive is not showing up in File explorer then it is caused by a conflicted drive letter or the hard drive has no drive letter. When the drive letter of your hard drive is conflicted with another one then the hard drive will show a new volume in Disk Management and thus, as a result, it won’t show up in the file explorer.

 So, here are some of the best ways to make your hard drive show up is to change its drive letter, and below are defined some steps for it:

1: In Disk Management, you need to right-click the hard drive as “New volume “or the partition doesn’t have a drive letter.

2: Now, select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”.

3: Next, in the main window click Change.

4: Now, assign a new drive letter to your external or internal hard drive and then click Ok.

Solution 5- Unhide the Drive partition:

Follow these given steps to unhide the Drive Partition:

1: First, you need to open a command prompt window and then type diskpart and press Enter.

2: If you see that prompt with a “User Account Control dialog opens” then click yes and then you will go to a diskpart Window

3: Now, on the diskpart window, you need to type list volume and then press Enter to show a list of all hard drive partitions existing on the computer.

4: Next, type select volume X and then replace X with the volume number of the hard disk partition that you want to hide and then press enter key to select the volume.

5: Next, type removes letter X and then replace X with the drive letter of the partition you want to hide and then hit enter to delete the volume letter so that the volume can be hidden.

6: Now, to unhide the disk partition, you need to type select Volume X and then press enter to select the hidden partition you want to show and type the assigned letter X and presenter to show it.

Solution 6 – Recover lost partition:

If the hard-drive problems are not showing in Windows 10 then you might need to recover the lost partition:

1: First, you need to find the lost partition in Disk Management and for that, you need to press Win +R and type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Run Window.

2: Now, press Ok to open Disk Management and if you see that partition is deleted then the disk space will be marked as Unallocated. Thus, you need to remember the partition size.

3: Now, run CMD as Administrator.

4: Next, you need to type diskpart in the window and hit enter.

5: Type list disk and then press enter key and you will see disks on the computer.

6: Now, type select disk # and press enter. But remember that # should be replaced with the number of the hard drive that contains the lost partition.

7: Next, type list volume and then press enter.

8: Type selects volume # and hit enter. But replace the # with the number of the lost partition.

9: Type Assign letter # and again press enter. Replace # with a unavailable drive letter

10: Now, exit this window, and then you will see if you can access the partition or not.

Solution 7 –Check all connected cable or connections:

Well, it is important to ensure that your hard drive is connected well to cables and has a strong connection with your PC. Ensure that the cables connected to the hard drive to the power supply are incorrect format.

If it seems that the data cables are switched or misplaced then it’s obvious that your computer system cannot detect the hard drive. However, if you don’t know how to check wires then try not attempting this thing and looking for an expert who completes this task well.

Solution 8 – Check for Viruses and Malware Programs:

To check for viruses and malware programs learn these following given steps:

1: First, you need to open Windows Security Settings.

2: Now, select Virus and threat protection> Scan options.

3: Next, you need to select Windows Defender offline scan and then select Scan now.

4: Here the Windows Defender offline scan takes about 10-15 minutes to run and then your PC will restart.

5: Finally, it will start detecting all malware and viruses in your computer and fixes the hard drive issue.

Solution 9- Format your Disk:

When your hard drive starts displaying as Raw then it signifies that your hard drive contains a file system error so, the best solution is to format the drive to a supported file system.

Here is how you can do it:

1: In Windows 10, Press Windows + X Keys and then click “Disk Management”

2: Now, find and right-click on your hard drive and then select “Format”.

3: Next, you need to set the system file as NTFS, tick and perform a quick format and then click Ok to start formatting the drive.

Note: As you start formatting it will cause data loss so don’t forget to turn to data recovery and bring back all your hard drive data after making the drive show up.

Solution 10- Check Power Option:

To check your power option, follow these steps carefully:

1: In Windows 10, you need to right-click the battery icon in your system tray and then choose “Power Option”

2: This screen can also be get accessed from the control panel.

3: Now, click the Hardware and Sound category and then select Power options.

4: Here you can select your preferred power plan. Both the Balanced and Power Saver are the default ones. Whereas High performance is hidden under the show additional plans i.e heading at the bottom also your PC manufacturer must have included their own power plans and create their customs.

Solution 11- Update or Reinstall Device Drivers:

For updating the device drivers, perform these given steps:

1: In the search box on the taskbar, you need to enter device manager and then select Device Manager.

2: Now, select a category to see the names of devices then right-click the one you would like to update.

3: Select and search automatically for updated driver software.

4: Now, select update driver

5: However, if windows don’t find a new driver then you can try looking for the device manufacturer website and then follow all on-screen instructions.

For Re-installing the device drivers, you need to follow these given steps: 

1: In the search box on the taskbar, you need to enter device manager and then select Device Manager.

2: Now, right-click the name of your device and then select Uninstall.

3: Restart your PC.

4: Finally, Windows will attempt to reinstall the driver.

Solution 12 – Run Hardware Troubleshooter:

Perform these below-given steps to run hardware troubleshooter:

1: Firstly, you need to make sure that your computer isn’t overheating and if it is then you need to close unused applications and check whether the fan is working properly or not.

2: Before trying to fix the problem boot your computer into safe mode.

3: Now, test your hardware components and then check the computer’s memory for errors.

4: Now, check for incorrectly installed or buggy drivers and start installing updated drivers.

5: Next, scan for malware that causes a crash to your computer.

6: Now, reset and reinstall the windows.

Solution 13 – Uninstall Problematic Drivers:

Here has been listed some ways for uninstalling the problematic drivers:

1: First, you need to open Run with Windows Shortcut keys (Win +R)

2: Now, type into control and press the enter key.

3: In the control panel, go to Programs and Features.

4: Now, right-click the driver and then select Un-install.

5: Next, you need to restart the PC.

Solution 14 – Enable Drivers in BIOS:

Usually, there are 2 methods for enabling Drivers in BIOS and i.e

Option 1: Command to enable or disable:

1: First, click the Start button.

2: Now, type Command.

3: Next, right-click on Command Prompt and then select “Run as Administrator”

4: Now, do one of the following:

• To disable device driver signing you need to type “BCDEDIT /set no integrity checks ON” then press “Enter“
• To enable device driver signing you need to type “BCDEDIT /set no integrity checks OFF” then press “Enter“

Option 2: Disable from menus:   

1: Select the Start Button.

2: Type Startup.

3: Select and “change advanced startup settings”

4: Select Restart now under the “Advanced startup” area.

5: Select Troubleshoot.

6: Select Advanced options

7: Select startup options.

8: Select Restart.

9: Now, a menu will appear, and where you can press 7 on your keyboard and can finally choose Disable Driver signing enforcement.

10: Thus, it will start enabling Drivers in BIOS.

Solution 15 – Replace faulty Hard Drive:

 For replacing all faulty hard drive you need to follow these given steps:

 1: First, back up all your files to one drive.

2: The old drive i.e still installed you need to go to Settings>Update and Security>Backup.

3: Now, insert a USB with enough storage to hold Windows and then back up to the US B drive.

4: Next, shut down your PC and start installing the new drive.

5: Again insert your USB and then turn on your computer to boot into the recovery drive.

6: Now, re-install all 3rd party apps and your files.

7: By doing all the above-given steps helps you in replacing the faulty hard drive.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’S)

Q1: How you can fix Windows 10 not detecting the hard drive problem?

Ans: 1: First, you need to go to search and then type Device Manager and press enter.

2: Now, expand disk drives and find the second disk drive, right-click on it and go to update driver software.

3: If any updates are available then follow the further instructions and thus your hard disk drive gets updated.

Q2: How you can add a second hard drive in Windows 10?

Ans: 1: Firstly, you need to open Disk Management.

2: Now, right-click unallocated and choose “New simple volume in the context menu” to continue.

3: Choose Next in the new simple volume wizard window.

Q3: How a computer can recognize a new SSD?

Ans: 1: First, you need to restart your computer and then press the F2 key after the first screen.

2: Now, press the Enter key to enter config.

3: Select serial ATA and then hit enter.

4: Here you will see the SATA controller mode option.

Q4: How you can fix windows not detecting your hard drive?

Ans: 1: Firstly, you need to shut down your PC first.

2: Secondly, open your computer and remove all the screws with a screwdriver.

3: Now, unplug the hard drive which fails to be recognized by windows BIOS and remove both the ATA or SATA cable and its power cable.

Q5: How you can manage drives in Windows 10?

Ans: 1: Right-click the Windows icon and then click Disk management.

2: Now, left-click the Windows icon and then type Disk management and then click Create and format hard disk platforms.

Final words

As we all are familiar a hard drive is an essential component of your PC so if it gets damaged, corrupted, or missing then you should avoid saving files or any kind of running programs before it gets fixed. By using faulty drives it may result in data loss or sometimes worse system failure.

On this page, we have explained that why the hard drive is not showing up on Windows 10 and along with it, we have also provided the best troubleshooting steps to fix this problem. Thus, you can follow the above-given steps one by one and see which works best for solving this problem.

Else, if these won’t work correctly, then you can contact our expert technician via chat and we will surely help you in resolving this problem as soon as possible. We are all time available at your service so in case of any queries you can chat with us and we deliver hassle-free solutions to you within a couple of time.

Sometimes it also might happen that you encounter the same issue on a USB Drive, SD card, etc. But no need to worry as all problems should get easily fixed with us. So contact us today for any kind of query.