[Fixed] Pen Drive Not Showing/Detected in My Computer in Windows

"When I tried to insert My friend's pen drive into my Windows 10 desktop, it was detected but did not show up on my computer. Are there any fixes? It is a Cruzer micro SanDisk pen drive."

Quick Navigation: Fixes for Pen Drive Not Showing or Detected in Computer

Overview of pen drive or USB flash drive not showing in computer 

USB pen drives, SD cards or external hard drives usually offer you an easy way to back up and transfer your data. But at the same time, these devices can also bring you problems, for example, pen drive not showing files, pen drive not opening in my computer, pen drive not recognized, etc. In the last post, we have introduced how to recover hidden files from USB pen drive. Here in this page, we would like to talk about how to fix the "USB not showing up" issue to help you find missing pen drive in Windows 10/8/7. This tutorial also works with external hard drives or other external USB devices.

Generally, when you see your pen drive not showing, you mean it doesn't show up in Windows File Explorer. Before navigating to the solutions, you should identify the specific situation first since different situations imply different causes. Go to "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management". Can you see your pen drive here? According to what you see Choose the correct fixes to apply.

How to fix USB pen drive/flash drive not showing in my computer

Depending on the situation you are in, you will need different ways to fix your pen drive that is not showing up on your computer.

Situation 1. Pen drive not showing in File Explorer but in Disk Management

Congratulations, your USB drive is still detectable by the computer, which makes the problem less serious. Generally, if the pen drive is not showing up under File Explorer but can be seen in Disk Management, it will:

• Be marked as unallocated space
• Or be shown as a volume without a drive letter

The possible causes of the phenomenon are USB driver issues and drive letter conflicts.

To fix the pen drive, there are three ways for you. Try the first two methods if the pen drive shows up as unallocated space. If the storage device appears without a drive letter, try method 3 instead.

Method 1. Update the USB pen drive or flash drive drivers

At most times, pen drive detected but not showing in my computer error happens because USB driver is not installed properly which is considered as one of the most widespread failures occurred on USB flash drive devices. So, you can first try to update the USB drivers and check if it can help to display your missing pen drive. Here we take Windows 10 as an example.  

Step 1. Connect your pen drive to the PC, right-click on "This PC" (in Windows 10) and choose "Properties".

Step 2. Click "Device Manager" then expand "Disk drives". Find and right-click the problematic USB drive and select "Update driver"

Step 3. Click "automatically search for driver software online".

Step 4. Wait for the driver to be updated, then reboot your computer. Afterward, you can try to reconnect your USB drive to PC and check whether the USB drive shows up or not.

Method 2. Recover data and create a new volume on the pen drive

If the pen drive is still not showing in my computer after you operate all the above steps, you need to recover your data and create a new volume to make your device usable again. To retrieve data from an inaccessible device, you can use the reliable hard drive recovery software - Deep Data Recovery.

It will easily retrieve your important data from the pen drive or any other external USB device since it can still be detected by Windows. In addition to recovering data from an inaccessible device, Deep Data Recovery can also perform deleted file recovery, formatted data recovery, RAW drive recovery, and more.

Generally, the unallocated space will show up as a lost partition in Deep Data Recovery. Select the right partition and then initiate the scanning process.

Step 1. Select file types and click "Next" to start

Launch Deep Data Recovery. Select file types and click "Next" to start.

Step 2. Choose the USB drive to scan

Choose your USB drive where you lost important files. Click "Scan" to start.

Step 3. Check and preview USB drive data

When the scanning is finished, you can quickly locate a specific type of file by using the Filter feature as well as the Search option.

Step 4. Restore flash drive data

After checking and finding lost USB drive files, click "Recover" to restore them. You shall save the found files to a safe location on your PC rather than to your USB drive.

After getting back all your files, you can now create a new volume on your pen drive to make it ready for data storage.

Step 1. Go to "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management".

Step 2. Right-click on the unallocated space and choose "New simple volume...".

Step 3. Follow the wizard to finish the remaining process.

Method 3. Change the drive letter of your pen drive

If the drive letter of your pen drive is the same as the drive letter of one of the partitions existing on your computer, your pen drive will not show up in Windows. In addition, it will show up with no drive letter under Disk Management. The solution to this problem is quite easy, all you need to do is to change the drive letter of your device.

Step 1. Go to "This PC", right-click it and choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".

Step 2. Right-click the volume on your USB device and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

Step 3. In the new window, click "Change".

Step 4. Assign a new drive letter to your pen drive and click "OK".

If there is any data loss on your pen drive after changing the drive letter, don't hesitate to perform USB data recovery using Deep Data Recovery.

Situation 2. Pen drive is not showing in File Explorer and Disk Management

Things get worse if the pen drive neither shows in File Explorer nor in Disk Management, which indicates that your pen drive is not detected by the computer at all. This could result from simple connection issues, USB driver issues or physical damage or the USB drive. Thus, the fixes for this situation are as follows:

Method 1. Check USB connection

Don't be unwilling to try the easy one first. The minor issue may also result in annoying problems. Try to change the USB port you insert your pen drive into or the computer you connect your device to, and then see whether the problem "pen drive not detected" remains.

Method 2. Update/reinstall driver

When there is something wrong with your device drivers, it's possible your pen drive will not show up in Windows File Explorer or Disk Management. To exclude this cause, you can either update your device driver by following method 1 in situation 1 or reinstall your device driver:

Step 1. Connect your pen drive to your computer, right-click "This PC", and choose "Properties" > "Devices Manager".

Step 2. Click on "Disk drives", right-click on your USB drive that is not showing and choose "Uninstall device".

Step 3. In the prompt asking you to confirm the removal, click "OK".

Step 4. When the uninstalling process has done, restart your computer and reconnect the USB flash drive/external hard drive to the PC. After the computer restarts, the driver will be automatically installed.

Method 3. Send for manual repair

If your device is damaged or dead, it won't show up on your computer. Besides, you will not be able to recover data using a data recovery software tool since the device cannot be detected. In this case, you will need manual data recovery services in order to rescue your data. You may be interested in data recovery cost if you are considering manual repair.

The bottom line

All the solutions provided above are workable ways to fix a pen drive that is not showing or detected by your computer. If you don't know the specific cause of the issue, you can try them one by one to have a try. Hope one of the fixes can solve the issue "pen drive not showing" perfectly for you. This video also demonstrates four ways to fix a drive not recognized or detected issue. Spend a few minutes more if you're interested in it.

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