Sabrent Hard Drive Adapter Won't Read Hard Drive
Backing upwards your data is important, and while storing information on the cloud has become second nature to most, there's all the same nothing like having everything saved on a physical device.
External drives are simple: you plug them in, they appear on your computer, and you can drag files right on over. Only if your drive isn't appearing when you plug information technology in, you might have a problem. Here are a few troubleshooting steps y'all can take to remedy the situation.
Make Sure Information technology's Plugged In and Powered On
Western Digital My Book
I know, I know, just hear me out: just because yous plugged the drive into your computer doesn't mean information technology'due south necessarily receiving the power it needs. While some drives can draw enough ability from your calculator's USB port, others—especially larger drives non intended to exist portable, similar the Western Digital My Book—may crave wall ability to spin up.
If your drive came with an Air conditioning ability adapter but you haven't plugged it in, effort hooking information technology upward (and pressing the power push, if there is 1). If it came with ii USB plugs, make sure they'reboth plugged into your PC. With whatsoever luck, your bulldoze volition appear normally once it gets the juice it needs.
Effort Another USB Port (or Another PC)
(Photo: Cronislaw/Shutterstock)
If the drive still isn't working, unplug information technology and try a different USB port. It's possible the port in question is declining, or just being finicky with your specific drive. If it's plugged into a USB 3.0 port, try a USB 2.0 port. If it's plugged into a USB hub, try plugging it directly into the PC instead. Yous might also try it in another computer.
If you're a multi-platform household, I'd especially recommend trying it in a computer that runs another operating organisation—e.thousand., if you lot tin't get the drive showing up on a Windows PC, try plugging it into a Mac. It'south possible the drive just isn't formatted for the computer y'all're trying to use, and you'll need to copy that information onto a drive that's formatted for cross-compatibility.
Update Your Drivers
Occasionally, Windows runs into commuter problems that will render a device unrecognizable. Open the Get-go card, blazon "device manager," and press Enter when the pick appears. Expand the Deejay Drives menu and the Universal Serial Bus menu to see if your external bulldoze appears in either set. If you encounter an entry that looks similar your drive with a yellowish exclamation mark, right-click on the device and choose Backdrop—you may find an error code y'all tin Google. Y'all can too head to the Driver tab and try updating or uninstalling the commuter and rebooting your computer.
Usually, hard drives simply apply Windows' built-in USB and hard disk drivers, then this isn't likely to fix a temperamental drive, but it'southward worth a shot. (You tin can also endeavour downloading drivers from the drive manufacturer'due south website, simply again, that's probably a long shot.) Check out our guide to updating your drivers for more details on this process.
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Enable and Format the Drive in Disk Management
If your bulldoze is powered on but still isn't appearing in File Explorer, it'southward fourth dimension to do some digging. Open up the Start carte du jour and type "deejay management," and press Enter when theCreate and Format Hard disk drive Partitions option appears. Once Disk Management loads, curl downwards to run across if your disk appears in the list. If it does, brand sure it's online and formatted. If it's offline, right-click the deejay's name (e.g. "Deejay two") and choose Online.
If the disk hasn't been formatted (information technology'll say "Unallocated" under a black bar), right-click information technology and cullNew Elementary Volume. This will also solve the trouble if the drive is formatted for some other operating system, as described to a higher place. Be warned that formatting it will erase whatsoever data on the drive, so simply continue if yous're sure you don't need anything from information technology.
Finally, if your drive is online and formatted, but doesn't prove a bulldoze letter side by side to its name, right-click the volume and cullChange Drive Letter and Paths to add together a drive letter. If you're lucky, one of these elementary steps should become your new drive up and running.
Clean the Disk and Kickoff From Scratch
In some more than specific cases, the drive will appear in Disk Direction, but just formatting the drive won't work. This is extremely common with SD cards formatted with Linux distributions for the Raspberry Pi, for example.
To regain your drive's total capacity, you lot'll need to run Windows' "clean" control, which will return the drive to a completely unformatted state. Again, this volition erase anything on it, so only continue if you have no other options—and brand extra sure you're cleaning the correct disk, or you could lose a lot of information.
Open up the Starting time card, type "diskpart," and printing Enter to open the run command. When the prompt appears, blazon "list disk" and press Enter to encounter the disks plugged into your system. If yous see the drive in question announced—pay close attention to its size—brand a annotation of its name. We'll employ "Disk 2" in this case.
Type "select disk two" and press Enter to select the disk yous desire to make clean. Finally, blazon "clean" and printing Enter. This will erase the disk, at which point you lot can follow the above steps to format it from the Deejay Management console.
Remove and Test the Bare Drive
Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive
If none of the above options work, you lot should remove the drive from its external enclosure and exam the bulldoze on its own. The components that convert that SATA drive into USB tin can fail, meaning the drive could be only fine if y'all connect it some other way.
If y'all have a desktop PC available, and the technological know-how, y'all can open it up and plug the drive straight into your motherboard. If not, buy a new external SATA-to-USB adapter dock or enclosure, plug your bare drive into that, and so connect that to your PC over USB.
If information technology works, then your old enclosure (or its power supply) may be dead. If your drive still isn't recognized, you may have a dead drive. Contact the manufacturer to come across if you're nonetheless nether warranty, and make certain your other hard drives are in working order.
Our Favorite External Hard Drives
ADATA HD830 (Photograph: Zlata Ivleva)
If your drive is beyond repair, it might exist time for a new 1. Check out PCMag's roundup of the all-time hard drives, wireless drives, and rugged drives. Nosotros as well have roundups of the best drives for Mac.
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Sabrent Hard Drive Adapter Won't Read Hard Drive
Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-to-do-when-an-external-hard-drive-wont-show-up