My mum's computer has been acting up lately, and after some urging, she decided to uninstall or deactivate certain programs based on online advice. Now, her computer isn't detecting any external hard drives at all. The external drive works fine on my computer, so that's not the issue. I'm also aware she turned off Windows Defender, but I've turned that back on. Beyond this, the computer sometimes crashes or programs will unexpectedly close. I'm looking for help to get her computer to recognize external hard drives again. Any advice?
4 Answers
Have you checked Disk Management? If the external drive is visible there, it might just need a drive letter assigned to show up in File Explorer. If it shows a missing file system or a RAW format, it might need to be reformatted, which would erase all data, so be careful with that. Also, keep an eye on the USB ports; they might need driver updates in Device Manager.
It sounds like you might have a driver issue. First, try running Windows Update to see if it can find and reinstall any missing drivers. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to fix detection problems with external drives.
Since the external drives work on your computer, it's likely that some drivers were uninstalled on your mum's PC. Checking BIOS settings could also help, as some new computers have USB functionalities disabled by default. Definitely recommend avoiding relying on AI for troubleshooting—there's a lot that can go wrong!
Another approach could be to run a command prompt check with 'sfc /scannow.' This command scans for and fixes corrupted files, which might help resolve the external drive detection issue.
Yeah, make sure to dig into the Device Manager. You could see if there are any unknown devices there. It’s possible the drivers got messed up when she uninstalled those programs. Also, if you still have issues, check the BIOS settings to ensure USB ports are enabled.