I woke up today to find that my PC isn't detecting my external hard drive anymore, and I'm puzzled about what could have caused this. The only removable storage that shows up is one of my internal SSDs, which isn't normal. I checked Disk Management, and my Toshiba 2TB Canvio Basics external HDD isn't even appearing there as unallocated space. I tried connecting the drive to another PC, and it works perfectly fine, but it doesn't seem to be working on any of the USB ports on my computer, including a HUB. It gets power and operates as usual during boot-up. Thanks in advance for any help! Also, I found out that it's likely my HUB that's malfunctioning, which is odd because everything else is working fine in those ports. How can I further test this and figure out why it won't work with just my external HDD?
2 Answers
Have you checked Disk Management to see if your HDD is showing up without a drive letter or maybe even uninitialized? Also, take a look in Device Manager to see if there are any error messages there.
It sounds like your drive could be facing issues. If it's failing, make sure to back up your data as soon as possible! Sometimes, external drives can act up if there’s too much power being drawn. Try unplugging other USB devices—it might help it work. Also, consider testing with a new USB cable in case of a connection problem. Be prepared for the drive to potentially fail anytime, though.
The HDD is pretty new; I just got it four months ago! I replaced my old one which was nearly 16 years old. I updated the post again with another finding that I can't quite wrap my head around.
I just updated my post, and unfortunately, nothing shows up in Disk Management—not even as unallocated storage, only the internal SSDs.