Have you ever found your flash drive not showing up in disk management in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7? Don't worry and this article aims to tell you how to solve the flash drives not showing up issue!
“Hello, there, I am now stuck in a very serious problem right here, since last week my USB flash drive did not show up in My computer and Disk Management. I spent the whole week searching for solutions on Google, and tried all methods I found, but my computer does not show up any signals of the drive. I thought the drive must be dead, but I still want to try any solution since some important files stored within it…any idea? Thank you.”
For many users under Windows system, USB flash drive, SD card, or other second hard drive not detected or showing up is a very common problem. Are you also bothered by such issues? Have you figured out the reasons? If not, we will explain why the USB drive does not show up in Disk Management Windows 11/10/8/7. The possible causes include:
▶Physical damage;
▶Virus and malware attack;
▶Faulty cable or port;
▶Flash drive is not enabled in BIOS;
▶Flash drive driver is outdated;
▶There are some bad sectors on the flash drive;
Now that we have found out the possible causes behind the thumb drive not showing up in Disk Management, now we need to figure out how to solve this problem correspondingly. Below we have collected some effective methods.
First of all, you should check whether the USB port is in a good condition. If the port is damaged, then the BIOS cannot detect the USB. For this, you can plug the flash drive to your computer through another different port to test their conditions. If the hard drive not appearing in Disk Management still persists, then the port is not the causes. Besides, you should know that some 3.0 USB device with advances in technology require a more powerful and compatible port to work. So, check out your USB flash drive instruction manual for compatibility information.
If the flash drive is not enabled in System Setup (BIOS), then it won’t show up in Disk Management and Device Manager. Since some unused ports are disabled in the BIOS in default by the motherboards producers, you might found the connected hard drive not appearing in Windows. In such case, you can enter BIOS to check their current states and enable them if necessary.
1. Restart the Windows 11/10/8/7 PC. Long press the “Pause Break” before the Windows logo appears to halt the boot process.
2. Check the screen instructions to boot to BIOS setup. The message might be “BIOS Setup F8””Press F8 to Enter BIOS” (that varies from PC manufacturer/motherboard to manufacturer/motherboard).
3. Press “Pause Break” and press the proper keys like F1, F2, F8, Del or other function keys to access system setup.
4. Use the arrow key to select “Advanced”, “Onboard Devices” or “Integrated Peripherals” from the menu. Press “Enter”.
5. Select “USB Controller” and press “+” or “-” to change the settings to “Enabled”.
6. At last, press “F10” key to enable the USB ports and then exit the BIOS.
Basically, as some manufactures of hard drives, Windows offers hard drive drivers to support your disk. But if the released driver is outdated or problematic, the hard drive might disappear in your computer. At this point, you can try to update the driver.
1. Click the Search box , type Device Manager, and select it from the list of results.
2. Expand Disk drives to find your flash drive, then right-click (or tap and hold) it, and select "Properties".
3. In the Properties window, choose "Update Driver". Then choose "Select Search automatically for updated driver software" in the next window.
If Windows doesn't find a new driver, you can try looking for one on the device manufacturer's website and follow their instructions. If updating driver does not work for flash drive not appearing in Disk Management, you can choose "Uninstall" option, then restart your computer and it will be reinstalled automatically.
If your flash drive gets attacked by some malware or virus, it won’t also show up in File Explorer or Disk Management. The easiest way is to run the security or anti-virus software on your computer to remove them. Or you can format this drive to clear the virus. For this, you can try the reliable disk formatting tool-AOMEI Partition Assistant. This software can recognize nearly all popular file systems, like Ext2/3/4, FAT32, FAT, exFAT, NTFS, etc.
It can tackle with many trick formatting tasks with ease like SD card won’t format on PC, etc. What’s more, its NTFS to FAT32 Converter supports safely converting file systems between FAT32 and NTFS (instead of formatting) without losing data. You can also experience more amazing functions such as migrating OS to SSD, allocating free space from one partition to another, erasing SSD drive, recovering missing partition and more.
The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
1. Download the freeware, install and open it. Right-click the partition on your flash drive to select Format Partition from the menu.
2. Choose FAT32 under File System tab and click OK.
3. Hit on Apply to commit the operation.
Besides, you can also wipe the USB drive totally to clear the possible virus.
Some bad sectors can also lead to flash drive not showing up in Disk Management issue. It is possible that there are such bad sectors on your disk. You can run CHKDSK.exe tool to check and fix them.
1. Click Start button, input "cmd" in the Search field, right click the Command Prompt icon and select "Run as administrator".
2. In the Command Prompt window, input "chkdsk g: /f"and press Eneter to check and fix found bad sectors on the flash drive. Replace "g" with your flash drive letter.
If running the commands line is not your thing, you can also take advantage of AOMEI Partition Assistant.
1. Run the software. Right click the flash drive partition and choose Advanced->Check partition.
2. Choose a way of checking disk error, the first one is always recommended, since it can not only check the error, but also fix them then.
3. Wait for seconds, the partition check operation will be done.
Then, check if external hard drive not showing in Disk Management issue still exists. If you have tried all the 5 solutions above but nothing lucky happened, you had better take the flash drive to a professional repair center and check whether it is dead. If the warranty still works, replace it with a new one.
If you solve the flash drive not showing up in Disk Management successfully via the methods above, but now you cannot see it in File Explorer, don’t feel disappointed since you can do as following:
1. If the disk is marked as “not initialized” for some corruption issues, you can use PowerShell to initialize disk to MBR or GPT and partition it then.
2. If it shows an unallocated space in Disk Management, you can create a partition on it in Disk Management, and you then will see and access it in My Computer.
3. If the flash drive does not have a drive letter, it won’t show up on This PC/My Computer, either. So try to change drive letter to make it visible.