Solved: Seagate External Hard Drive not Working [6 Fixes]

Oops! My Seagate external hard drive not working!

"My Seagate 2TB hard drive suddenly stopped working, the motor is working but the led is not blinking. It's not even showing any trace on disk management or in boot screen. Any help will be appreciated!"

People prefer using an external hard drive as their storage device for huge storage tasks. It brings convenience as well as problems. For example, many Seagate users complain that they sometimes encounter various issues like Seagate external hard drive not showing up or files disappearing. So, it's not weird to find Seagate external hard drive not working as the user described above.

Why is my Seagate external hard drive not working?

What causes the "my Seagate drive is not working" problem? There is a range of factors affecting the performance of the external disk. Let's have a look.

✲ Your external hard drive is not compatible with the current version of Windows
✲ The USB header on the motherboard is damaged.
✲ There is an issue with the USB port.
✲ Your hard drive cable has something faulty.
✲ The external hard drive is physically damaged.
✲ The disk driver or Windows is out of date.

How to fix Seagate external hard drive not working?

After knowing about the reasons for the external Seagate hard drive not working, let's see how to fix it quickly and safely. First, you can try the basic troubleshooting methods listed below.

Quick tips to fix non-working Seagate external hard drive:  

◤ Restart your computer

◤ Reconnect the external hard drive

◤ Clean the dust from the USB contact points

◤ Try a different USB port

If the quick fixes don't work, you can check the state of your external hard drive, and refer to the following solutions.

▶ Fix 1. Run Hardware and Devices troubleshooter

For Windows computers, you can use Hardware and Devices troubleshooter to fix some hardware and external device-related issues including the Seagate external hard drive not working

Step 1. Type "Troubleshooter" or "Troubleshooting" in the search box and select it from the list. Click "Configure a device" under "Hardware and Sound".

Step 2. In the pop-up window, click "Advanced" > "Apply repair automatically".

Step 3. Click on "Next" to launch the Hardware and Devices Troubleshooter to fix the problems.

▶ Fix 2. Update or reinstall the external hard drive drivers

External Seagate hard drive not working may be led by an old or outdated disk driver. And you will find your external drive is not detected in Disk Management or Device Manager. Thus, you can solve it by updating or reinstalling the external hard drive drives.

Step 1. Right-click on the Start menu, choose "Device Manager", click "Disk Drives" and right-click on the Seagate external hard drive you plugged in, then select "Update Driver".

Step 2. Click "Search automatically for drivers" in the next window and your Windows will search your computer for the best available driver and install it on your device.

▶ Fix 3. Assign a drive letter for the external hard drive

If you find your external disk showing as New Volume in Disk Management, this is probably because the Seagate drive shares the same drive letter as your existing partition or is not given a new drive letter.

To fix Seagate external hard drive not working, you can assign a drive letter for your Seagate external disk.

Step 1. Open Disk Management, right-click the partition of the external Seagate hard disk, and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths...".

Step 2. Follow the instructions to set a new drive letter to the Seagate disk and click "OK" to confirm.

▶ Fix 4. Reinstall the USB controllers

If the "my Seagate drive is not working" issue still exists, you can try reinstalling the USB controllers to make your system and the external hard drive interact much smoother.

Step 1. Press "Windows + X", click "Device Manager" and expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers".

Step 2. Right-click your external hard drive controller and click "Uninstall device". Then restart your PC, and the system will spontaneously reinstall the external disk controller.

▶ Fix 5. Turn on the USB Root Hub

Sometimes, Seagate external hard drive may not working normally if multiple devices are connected to the same USB hub. In such a case, you can enable the USB root hub to let the device work correctly again.

Step 1. Expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers" as shown above. Right-click the USB Root Hub option and then select "Properties".

Step 2. Switch to the "Power Management" tab, uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power", and then, click "OK" to save the change.

▶ Fix 6. Format the external hard drive

If none of the above methods works, you can format the external hard drive to fix the Seagate external hard drive not working issue. Note that formatting will erase all data on the hard drive. Please make sure there is nothing important on your drive before you perform the formatting.

Although Disk Management can do this for you, if you find the external Seagate hard disk won’t format, you can resort to a third-party disk formatting utility. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free tool that can manage internal and external partitions and disks on Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP computers. It can clone/wipe/create/format/delete/resize/move partition on the disk easily.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click the partition of the external Seagate hard drive that you need to format, and choose "Format Partition".

Step 2. Choose an appropriate file system from the listed menu. Then, click the "OK" button.

Step 3. Go back to the main interface. Click "Apply" to perform the operation.

Conclusion

From the content above, you must know how to fix Seagate external hard drive not working problem. Hope one of the six effective methods can get you out of the dilemma.

As you can see, the complicated and changeable environment always involves you in the risk of data loss. It's suggested to form a good habit of making a backup by cloning your external hard drive or any other item you don't want to lose.