If your second hard drive not detected in Windows 10 or 11, this post will guide you what to do respectively when second hard drive is not detected or recognized in FIle Explorer, Disk Management, BIOS or after Windows 10 update.
“For some reason, my secondary hard drive keeps disappearing randomly while Windows 10 is running. The drive stays until some random moment when Windows cannot detect it any more. With a simple restart, the drive cannot be detected and won’t show up, only after I shut down the machine completely, and push the power button back on, does this work. Why is my second hard drive not detected and showing up in Windows 10? What should I do to fix it?”
Most Windows 10 users probably tend to use two hard drives (internal main hard drive and another external hard drive) for data storage requirements. However, some of them might meet the "second hard drive not detected in Windows 10" issue now and then, especially after a Windows 10 update. So, in this article, we will share the causes and solutions to external hard drive not detected problem.
By the way, if you also encounter C drive is full after Windows 10 update, you can click to know solutions.
What on earth leads to second hard drive not detected in Windows 11/10/8/7? Well, below are some major reasons you can take a look at:
The second disk sometimes cannot be found in File Explorer but you can get it in Disk Management? Or you cannot see it in both of them? How to make PC recognize the second hard drive? Different situations need different solutions, and here we will show you what to do in different cases.
Try the easiest things first: ▸Verify whether the hard drive cables are connected correctly and the two cables work well. That’s because if the connection cables get loose, there is a possibility that the disk does not show up in Windows. ▸Make sure the SATA port, USB port, and power supply work fine, too. If everything is right, but the problem is still there, try one of the following technical solutions.
If you cannot find the second hard drive in File Explorer, but you are able to see it in Disk Management, the following solutions might help.
Solution 1. Initialize and partition the second hard drive
When the hard drive is not initialized, you won’t be able to see and read it in Windows File Explorer.
1. Right-click "This PC/ My Computer">"Manage"> "Disk Management" to open Disk Management
2. Find the hard drive and right-click it, select “Initialize Disk” from the given menu, then follow the hints to initialize the disk into MBR or GPT.
Besides you can also use PowerShell to initialize disk. After you initialize the disk, the disk will be shown as unallocated space, then you need to partition it to make the drive visible in Windows.
3. Right click on the unallocated disk space and select "New Simple Volume". And click “Next” on the welcome page.
4. Fill in the “simple volume size” to the desired value in Megabytes, then click “Next”. Notice the minimum and maximum allowed size when creating the partition.
5. Choose “Assign the following drive letter” and select the desired drive letter from the dropdown menu. Click “Next” to continue.
6. On the Format Partition page, you can decide the file system, allocate unit size and volume label. After everything is done, click "Next", and then “Finish” to proceed.
To create more than one partition on the second hard drive, you can leave some free space in step 4. And repeat the steps to create another partition. If you want to quickly partition a large hard drive into several partitions at one time, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant instead.
The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro from your computer. Right-click the second hard drive and select "Quick Partition".
2. In the pop-out windows, you can set the disk type, partition counts, partition size, and volume name, file system and so on. After all are done, click "Start Partitioning".
With two clicks, you can create multiple partitions at one time instead of creating them one by one.
Solution 2. Assign a drive letter
Lack of drive letter, the second hard drive won’t show up on This PC/My Computer, either. So try changing the drive letter following the below steps.
1. In Disk Management, right-click the second hard drive and select "Change drive letter and path".
2. Choose a letter for your partition from the list and confirm.
3. Then restart your computer. And check whether the 2nd hard drive not showing up in Disk Management issue has been solved.
Note: if the Change Drive Letter and Paths Greyed Out in Windows 11/10/8/7, you can turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro, too.
If you cannot even find the second hard drive in Disk Management, then other different solutions are required.
Solution 1. Update the driver
If the second hard disk driver is outdated, then it won’t appear in Disk Management and File Explore. In this case, you need to update the driver in Device Manager:
1. Right-click on Start, click "Device Manager".
2. Expand Disk driver and locate the hard drive which cannot be detected by Windows.
3. Right-click on the disk and select "Update Driver Software" from context menu.
4. If there are any updates, follow further instructions to update the disk driver.
Solution 2. Uninstall and reconnect the second hard drive
In addition to updating the disk driver, you can try to uninstall and reconnect the external hard drive to get Windows 10 to detect or recognize it.
1. Enter the Device Manager interface as solution 1.
2. Double click Disk Driver to expand it.
3. Right click on the second hard drive and select “Uninstall”.
4. Reboot your computer after uninstalling this disk is finished and plug in the hard drive again.
Solution 3. Check and fix bad sectors on the second disk
To check and fix the existing disk error, you can run “chkdsk :/f” command in the Command Prompt window. Here is an example to check and fix errors on G: drive.
1. Press Win+R at the same time, type “cmd” in the Run dialogue and press Enter to get Command Prompt window open.
2. Then input “chkdsk g: /f” in the window and press Enter to execute it.
But if you are not familiar with such complicated commands, you can switch to the AOMEI Partition Assistant. It could also make checking and fixing errors a simple task.
The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
1. Run the software, right-click the second hard disk and click "Advanced"-> "Check Partition".
2. Select the first way to check as well as fix the disk error, and click OK.
3. Then wait for the process to finish.
When you find your hard drive is not showing up in BIOS, try the following steps to troubleshoot the problem.
1. Restart your computer and keep pressing F2 (or F1, Delete) to enter BIOS; or you can click to read: How to open BIOS on Windows 10 and 11 in 5 ways.
2. Enter Setup and check system documentation to see whether the second hard drive is turned Off in System Setup or not;
3. If it's Off, turn it ON in System Setup.
4. Reboot PC to check if it can be recognized in Disk Management.
If the second hard drive is not detected by Windows 10 after a recent Windows 10 update, there are chances that a “broken” Windows version has been somehow installed on your computer system, then you can choose all new updates.
1. Select Start and then choose the “Settings” icon on the Windows 10 desktop.
2. Choose “Update & Security”. And locate “Windows Update” can check if there are any pending items. If there are, install updates.
At last, check if the external hard drive is still not detected by Windows 10.
If your second hard drive stored important data, and you find you lost it when it cannot be detected or recognized, AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you recover it easily. It supports restoring more than 200+ types of files from many complex data loss scenarios. Whether you encounter accidental deletion, system crash, format, disk corruption, virus attack, etc., it can recover data from the hard drive.
If all the methods cannot fix Windows not detecting hard drive issue, your disk might be corrupted or damaged. This is a common situation when you use a disk for many years. If you want to change a new one, the AOMEI software also offers Clone Disk function that allows you to clone a large hard drive to a small one without data loss, or easily clone a hard drive to SSD without any reinstalling.
So many effective methods introduced elaborately, it won’t be challenging to deal with “the second hard drive not detected in Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7” issue. More importantly, AOMEI Partition Assistant can also help solve other similar disk issues like BIOS detect hard drive but Windows does not, USB flash drive showing 0 bytes or no media, cannot format 0 bytes USB, etc. To deal with similar issues in Windows Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003,etc, you can make use of AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.