How Do I Fix My Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Detected

Don’t know how do I fix my Toshiba external hard drive not detected? In this tutorial, 10 methods such as formatting this hard drive will be shared for you.

By Tina / Updated on May 12, 2023

How do I fix my Toshiba external hard drive not detected?

"My Toshiba ext HDD is not showing up in my laptop which runs on windows 10. :-( I tried googling and self fix it. But this thing is not even showing in disk management. How do I fix my Toshiba external hard drive not detected? Pls help.

- Question from answers.microsoft.com

Why Toshiba external hard dive not be detected?

In order to better manage the data in the PC, many users tend to save some files to Toshiba external hard drive. However, some of them will ask the question "Why my Toshiba hard drive not working/recognized".

After reviewing numerous articles, we concluded the following reasons:

✿ The drive connection is wrong.
✿ New Toshiba hard drive has not been initialized.
✿ Toshiba external hard drive has no drive letter or wrong drive letter.
✿ The hard disk driver is outdated.
✿ The Windows version isn't matched the Toshiba hard drive.
✿ The file system of the hard disk is different from that of the computer.
✿ There are bad sectors on the Toshiba external hard drive.

How to fix Toshiba external hard drive not detected

How to fix Toshiba external hard drive not recognized? Next, we will talk about 10 methods to do it.

★ Solution 1. Check for USB port and cable

The easiest fix is to check for connectivity issues. When the disk connection is wrong, the hard drive will not be detected on the PC.

1. Check whether the Toshiba external hard drive cable is connected properly. If the connection cable is loose, Toshiba external hard drive will not show up in PC.

2. Connect the Toshiba to another computer with the table, seeing if it is damaged.

3. Check the SATA ports and USB ports for dust.

★ Solution 2. Run the Windows troubleshooter

If you don't know the specific reason for Toshiba hard disk not working, you can use Windows built-on function troubleshooter, it will check your PC for some errors.

Step 1. Open "Settings" from the Windows task bar, click "Update & security" and "Troubleshoot".

Step 2. Click "Run the troubleshooter" and run this practical tool.

★ Solution 3. Initialize the Toshiba external hard drive

When a new Toshiba external hard drive is not initialized, it will be marked as "unknown, not initialized" by Disk Management. So, it will not be detected by the PC. You can follow the steps to initialize this hard drive with Diskpart.

Step 1. Press "Windows", then input "diakpart" in the search box and click "Run as administrator".

Step 2. In the Diskpart window, type the following commands and press "Enter".

• list disks
• select disk 2
• convert gpt (or "convert mbr".)

If you are worried about typing wrong Diskpart commands, then causing unwanted consequences. You can also try the powerful freeware -AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

In a clean interface, you only need 3 steps to initialize the target hard disk. Besides, if you want to optimize your computer and hard drive, it has many functions to help you, such as PC Cleaner, Wipe hard drive, Create partitions, Disk Defrag, etc.

Download Freeware Win 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP

Secure Download

Step 1. Download and run this reliable disk manager, right-click the target Toshiba external hard drive and click "Initialize Disk".

Step 2. In the small window, choose "MBR" or "GPT" and click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Apply" to start to initialize this Toshiba external hard drive.

★Solution 4. Change the drive letter of Toshiba external hard drive

If the partition of the hard disk has no drive letter or the drive letter is incorrect, it cannot be found in Windows Explorer. Therefore, you need to check and change drive letter of the Toshiba external hard drive.

Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, right-click on the target drive, click "Advanced" and "Change Drive Letter".

Step 2. In the new window, choose a new drive letter and click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Apply" and "Proceed" to change the drive letter of the Toshiba disk.

★ Solution 5. Update driver in Device Manager

In order to solve the problem of Toshiba external hard drive not detected, updating driver in Device Manager is also a good method.

Step 1. Click "Start" and input "device manager", then press "Enter" to open it. In the new window, find out and click "Disk drives".

Step 2. Right-click the target hard drive and click the "Update driver" option.

Step 3. In the new popped window, click "Search automatically for updated driver software".

★ Solution 6. Reinstall the USB controller

How do I fix my Toshiba external hard drive not detected? You can also try to reinstall the USB controllers. The detailed steps are as follows:

Step 1. Press "Windows+X" and click "Device Manager", double click "Universal Serial Bus controllers", then you can see all the USB controllers.

Step 2. Right-click on the target hard drive controller, click "Uninstall device". Then restart the PC, the system will spontaneously reinstall the hard drive controller.

★ Solution 7. Check for the Windows update

When the Windows is not compatible with the drive, Toshiba external hard drive not detected issue can also appear.

Step 1. Open "Windows Settings", then click "Windows Update".

Step 2. Click "Check for updates". Then operate according to the wizard.

★ Solution 8. Format the Toshiba external hard drive

When the file system of Toshiba external hard drive is not compatible with the target device, it will also not be recognized. You can take the following measures to format the hard drive.

Step1. Right-click the target drive and click "Format Partition".

Step 2. Set the partition label and select "FAT32", then click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Apply" to format the target Toshiba external hard drive.

★ Solution 9. Enable legacy USB support

When Legacy USB Support disabled, the Toshiba external hard drive may be not detected by the Windows OS.

Step 1. Restart the PC, repeatedly press "1-9" button to get into the BIOS interface. Turn to "Advanced" and select USB configuration.

Step 2. Click on Legacy USB Support and select "Enabled". Then save the all settings.

★ Solution 10. Fix bad sectors on Toshiba external hard drive

Bad sectors refer to the part of the hard disk that cannot write data. If there are too many bad sectors on the hard disk, it will not work properly. You can check and remove the bad sectors with the following steps.

Step 1. Right-click the target drive and click "Check Partition".

Step 2. In the new window, click "Check partition and fix errors in this partition by using chkdsk.exe" and "OK".

Step 3. When you see the operation is finished, click "OK".

Note: If you want to enjoy more advanced functions, including Allocate free space, Migrate OS to SSD, Disk Clone Wizard (can move the whole hard drive to another), App Mover, etc., you can turn to the Professional Version.

Conclusion

How do I fix my Toshiba external hard drive not detected? From this post, you can get 10 solution to deal with it. As you can see, if you want to easily do it and get a better hard drive, AOMEI Partition Assistant can be the first choice.

In addition, if you want to enjoy AOMEI in Windows Server, please go to the Server Edition.

Tina · Staff Editor

Tina is an English editor of AOMEI Technology. She has a positive attitude and full of energy. On her work, she always keeps thinking to figure out the solutions for users' problems, and writes the answers so that can help someone. In her daily life, she likes to sing, watch TV and sleep. She always being grateful and happy to all the things happened and all the people encountered.