"Hi there, do you know how to make external hard drive show up in PC when it failed to be detected? I have 1TB Toshiba external hard drive with almost 500GB data saved on it. It suddenly disappeared from my PC but the light of the drive is still on. What's going on with my drive? Do know you how to fix this issue?"
External hard drive not showing up or detected is just one of the many situations that indicate your Toshiba hard drive is not working. To help you fix your problematic device quickly, you should specify your situation according to the steps below before applying the fixes for "Toshiba external hard drive not working".
Step 1.Connect your Toshiba hard disk to your computer using the Toshiba cable.
Step 2.Go to "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Then you will see yourself in one of the following cases:
When your Toshiba hard drive is not working, you may find yourself in one of the situations listed above. Identify your situation and follow to see the possible causes and the solutions to fix your Toshiba hard drive.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Fix 1. Detectable But Inaccessible | If you find your Toshiba disk isn't showing any files, you can...Full steps |
Fix 2. Detected But Not Showing Files | Try every USB port available; Determine you're using USB 2.0 or 3.0...Full steps |
Fix 3. Toshiba Not Showing Up | Check the hard drive connection > update Toshiba driver > send for manual repair...Full steps |
Fix 4. Toshiba Not in This PC | Update Toshiba driver > change drive letter...Full steps |
Fix 5. Light Blinking But Not Working | This is a common issue that happens to external hard drives from all the brands...Full steps |
Possible causes: MBR corruption, I/O device error, file system errors...
You may see your Toshiba external hard drive state is "Not Initialized" or "No Media" in Disk Managemen, your disk shows RAW file system or the partition on it is lost (showing as unallocated space). All make your device inaccessible. To fix "Toshiba external hard drive not working" in the last two situations, you can:
If the partition on your Toshiba disk is RAW, don't worry. You can use the hard drive recovery software - Deep Data Recovery to recover data from the inaccessible disk and then format the device to assign a new file system to it, which will make it usable again.le again.
To recover data from your RAW drive:
Step 1. Select file types that you want to recover
Use a correct USB cable to connect your external hard drive to your computer. Launch Deep Data Recovery, because there will be a lot of scanned files, you can choose a file category for quick filtering, such as Pictures, Videos, Documents, Audio.
Step 2. You will see your external disk under External drives. This software supports all the popular external disk brands, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, LaCie, SanDisk, Samsung, etc.
Select the external hard drive and then click the "Scan" button.
Step 3. As soon as the scan process starts, the software will find more and more lost and deleted data and display the data in the scan results. The recovered data will be nicely organized. You can quickly find the target files/folders by file type or search in the search box with exact file name.
Step 4. You can preview the files found by Deep Data Recovery's scanning algorithms. Then, select files and click "Recover". To avoid data overwriting, we recommend that you save the recovered data to a different drive than the original Seagate drive.te drive.
To format your Toshiba disk:
Step 1.Open "This PC", click your RAW drive or RAW disk and choose "Formatted".
Step 2.Set a file system (NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT) according to your needs and click "Proceed".
Step 3.In the Warning window, click "OK" to start formatting your storage medium.
You may see your Toshiba hard drive showing up as unallocated space because the partition is lost. In such a case, you can also use the Qiling data recovery software to recover data from your Toshiba external hard drive and then create new partitions on it to make it usable. Since the way to perform data recovery has been detailed already, here we will show you how to create new partitions on your disk only.
Step 1.Right-click "This PC", choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Step 2.Right-click the unallocated space and choose "New Simple Volume".
Step 3.Follow the wizard to finish the remaining process.
If you find your Toshiba disk isn't showing any files, you can refer to the article about "pen drive not showing data" to make your files show up again.
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If you are having a similar issue on your hard drive, you may directly try the fixes below.
How to Fix Hard Drive Not Showing Up in Windows
Are your hard drives, be it new or old, internal or external, not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management? Follow to learn how to make your hard drive showing up again in Windows 10/8/7 without losing data.
Possible causes: Connection issues, outdated Toshiba external hard drive driver, physical damage on the disk
Based on the possible reasons why your Toshiba external hard drive is not working, you have three methods to try:
There are many tips you can try to check the connection between your Toshiba external hard drive and your computer.
If the Toshiba hard drive is still not working, try to update the device driver. An outdated or corrupted hard drive driver will cause some problems while using the device. Since your hard drive is not detected by the PC, you cannot update the driver via Device Manager. Go to the official site of Toshiba, then download and install the latest driver by entering your model or the serial number of your disk.
If you are sure there is physical corruption on your Toshiba external hard drive or the disk is still not working after trying the methods above, you are recommended to send the Toshiba hard drive for manual repair.
Consult with Qiling data recovery experts for one-on-one manual recovery service. We could offer the following services after a FREE diagnosis.
Possible Causes: Toshiba external hard drive driver issues, drive letter conflicts
A Toshiba external hard drive that is not working in such a case may be caused by a problematic device driver or a drive letter conflict between your Toshiba external disk and the partition on your computer. The solutions are easy:
Since your device is detectable, you can update the driver via the Device Manager.
Step 1.Connect the Toshiba external hard drive to 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"r"r"
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 your PC and check whether the USB drive shows up or not.
Step 1.Go to "This PC", right-click it, and choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Step 2.Right-click the volume on your USB flash drive/external hard drive and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".
Step 3.In the new window, click "Change".
Step 4.Assign a new drive letter to your USB and click "OK".
This is a common issue that happens to external hard drives from all the brands including Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, and more. The solutions to "Toshiba external hard drive not working" in such a case are the same as the ones to "Seagate external hard drive light blinking but not working", regardless of the brands.
In addition to the commonest cases, there are other situations in which your Toshiba external hard drive is not working properly. Thus, there are other tips worth trying if the methods above fail to bring your device back to normal.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Fix 1. Check Power Management | Click Start, type: devmgmt.msc and hit "Enter"...Full steps |
Fix 2. Reboot to Safe Mode | Go to Settings, click on "Update & security". Tab on "Recovery"...Full steps |
Fix 3. Use Partition Manager | Launch Qiling Partition Master Free and right-click the partition...Full steps |
Fix 4. Run CMD | Press "Win + R" to open Run dialog and...Full steps |
If this doesn't work, try Fix 2.
In order to thoroughly check out and find the exact problem, you can try to reboot the PC into Safe Mode to see where Toshiba external hard drive can work or not:
If not, don't worry. Effective fixes and solutions are available to help to fix Toshiba's external hard drive not working issue right now.
Disk check can effectively fix and repair some internal errors on your storage devices, even including the hard disk drive not working issue. Here you have two options to get this issue fixed:
Step 1. Launch Qiling Partition Master Free and click the partition that you want to check by clicking "Surface test".
Step 2.Click "Proceed" to continue and let this program check all found errors on the Toshiba external hard drive.
Then you can check to see whether this has worked to repair your Toshiba external hard drive or not.
Qiling CleanGenius is a user-friendly computer fixing tool that is both safe and lightweight. It's a perfect alternative to CHKDSK command. Use this one-click tool to fix the damaged file system easily.
Step 1. DOWNLOAD Qiling CleanGenius on your computer and complete the installation.
Step 2. Run the software. Click "Optimization", and then choose "File Showing" .
Step 3. Select the drive with a corrupted file system. Tick the "Check and fix file system error" option and click "Execute".
Step 4. Wait the tool performs the repairing task. After that, click the "here" button to check the drive.
Then check out whether any device shows up as unrecognized or not:
When your Toshiba external hard drive is not working, figure out the specific situation and then follow the corresponding solutions to fix it, which is more time-consuming than trying the tips one by one. If none of the fixes help to fix "Toshiba hard drive not working", other than sending the device for manual repair, you can also get it replaced if it is still under warranty.