How to Format an External Hard Drive That Is Not Visible?

How to format an outer difficult thrust that is not visible? Is location immoderate measurement to do that? Don’t worry. In this post, MiniTool Partition Wizard will supply pinch you a step-by-step guideline connected really to format nan invisible outer difficult drive.

External difficult drives are often utilized to shop aliases backmost up data. Due to nan compatibility of different devices, you request to format nan outer difficult drive. However, erstwhile you link nan outer difficult thrust to a Windows PC, you whitethorn find that nan outer difficult thrust is not visible connected nan computer. So, really to format an outer difficult thrust that is not visible?

Why External Hard Drive Is Not Visible

There are galore reasons why outer difficult thrust is not visible connected a Windows computer. Here are immoderate communal issues:

• Connection issues owed to larboard failure
• Outdated aliases corrupt drivers
• External difficult thrust not receiving power
• Corrupted strategy drive
• Partitioning issues pinch outer drives

How to Format an External Hard Drive That Is Not Visible

How to format nan invisible outer difficult drive? It tin beryllium divided into 2 steps: first, make nan outer difficult thrust visible, and past format nan outer difficult drive.

Part 1: Make nan External Hard Drive Visible

#1. Some Quick Way

Before applying precocious troubleshooting methods, present are immoderate speedy fixes you tin try:

1. Restart nan machine and link nan outer difficult thrust to troubleshoot impermanent failures aliases causes that forestall nan difficult thrust from being detected.
2. Connect nan difficult thrust utilizing a different USB larboard aliases a different computer.
3. If nan outer thrust has a dedicated powerfulness cord, plug it into a different powerfulness outlet aliases switch it.

If nan supra doesn’t work, publication connected to effort different fixes.

#2. Update Windows Driver

If Windows Disk Management does not database nan outer drive, you tin cheque for thrust issues connected Windows done Device Manager. If nan thrust is outdated aliases damaged, you tin update nan driver and restart nan computer.

Step 1: Right-click connected nan Start paper and take Device Manager from nan list.

Step 2: Locate nan Disk drivers section and grow it. Then cheque if immoderate listed devices person a yellowish exclamation people adjacent to them. If it does, past it has a problem.

Step 3: Right-click connected nan problem thrust and prime Update Driver.

Step 4: Select Search automatically for driver software. Then your strategy will cheque if a caller update is disposable for nan thrust and punctual you to instal it if it finds one.

#3. Run nan Troubleshooter

You tin position hardware and instrumentality failures and hole them by moving troubleshooting:

Step 1: Press nan Win + R cardinal to unfastened nan Run dialog box.

Step 2: Type nan pursuing bid and property Enter to unfastened nan Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.

msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic

Step 3: In nan pop-up window, click connected Next to commencement nan troubleshooting. Then travel nan instructions connected nan surface to complete nan troubleshooting.

Part 2: Format an External Hard Drive

Once nan thrust becomes visible, you tin format nan outer difficult thrust successful respective ways. You tin usage Windows built-in tools: Disk Management and CMD. However, nan bid statement requires you to beryllium acquainted pinch your computer’s commands, and Disk Management does not let you to format outer difficult drives larger than 32G.

Here I powerfully urge you take a master formatting instrumentality – MiniTool Partition Wizard, which breaks nan limitation of Windows built-in devices and allows users to easy format nan outer difficult disk into NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and different formats.

Besides, this partition package tin thief you upgrade to a larger difficult thrust without reinstalling nan OS, backmost up information to support your information safe, check disk health, and more.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Download and instal MiniTool Partition Wizard connected your PC. Then motorboat it to get its main interface.

Step 2: Select nan partition you want to format and take Format Partition from nan near action panel.

Step 3: Then group nan Partition Label, File System, and Cluster Size. Then click connected OK to continue.

Step 4: Click connected Apply to corroborate nan changes.

Bottom Line

This station introduces really to format an outer difficult thrust that is not visible. We urge you usage a free partition manager called MiniTool Partition Wizard.