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Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0

Premium Member

USB portable HDD's not showing in File Explorer on WIN 8.1

Haven't had the PC all that long, not sure was was always case, but is now.

Yet if I go into device manager, it is seen and reports is functioning properly. But with them not apearing in File Explorer no way to access them.

Anyone have any ideas?

BTW SD in USB adapters and flash drives show fine, its just HDD's that aren't.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

darcilicious

Premium Member

Can you provide as many details as possible about the portable drives? Make, model, formatted, used by other systems okay, etc would be a good start. There will probably be more questions about them as you provide more details.

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0

Premium Member

said by darcilicious:

Can you provide as many details as possible about the portable drives? Make, model, formatted, used by other systems okay, etc would be a good start. There will probably be more questions about them as you provide more details.

One is a new virgin 2TB Seagate Expansion that claim WIN 8 compatable. THe other is year or so old WD 1TB Passport... its been used with Android, a Viseo TV, and PC's.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

darcilicious

Premium Member

How are they formatted (especially the WD)?
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to Hayward0

Premium Member

to Hayward0
To expand on the previous reply: Explorer (at least in prior versions of Windows) does not show 'disks', it shows file systems. If a disk has no file system, it will not be displayed.

You put a file system on a disk (or disk partition) by the action known as 'formatting'.

Unknown file systems - e.g., the many Linux file systems - won't be displayed in Explorer either.

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0

Premium Member

said by dave:

To expand on the previous reply: Explorer (at least in prior versions of Windows) does not show 'disks', it shows file systems. If a disk has no file system, it will not be displayed.

You put a file system on a disk (or disk partition) by the action known as 'formatting'.

Unknown file systems - e.g., the many Linux file systems - won't be displayed in Explorer either.

Both are standard Fat32 or exFAT
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to Hayward0

Premium Member

to Hayward0
Click for full size
What about Disk Management. What is its opinion on the file systems?

(Computer --right click--> Manage on WIn7, your mileage may vary).

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0

Premium Member

said by dave:

What about Disk Management. What is its opinion on the file systems?

(Computer --right click--> Manage on WIn7, your mileage may vary).

Like I have aready said Device Manager DOES see the drives and ARE WORKING PROPERLY as does Disk management all healthy, JUST explorer has a blind eye for them.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

2 edits

1 recommendation

dave

Premium Member

With respect, you said nothing about disk management before. The important questions with respect to disk management: are the partitions there, and are the file systems types recognized? Device manager only tells you that there's a piece of hardware present.

One more question for disk management is, is a specific drive letter assigned?

Were this my system, my next steps would be: (a) assign drive letter, (b) run chkdsk - the point being to verify that there is a useable file system present.

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0

Premium Member

said by dave:

With respect, you said nothing about disk management before. The important questions with respect to disk management: are the partitions there, and are the file systems types recognized? Device manager only tells you that there's a piece of hardware present.

One more question for disk management is, is a specific drive letter assigned?

Were this my system, my next steps would be: (a) assign drive letter, (b) run chkdsk - the point being to verify that there is a useable file system present.

Well in the chart section none of the drivers had letters not even C (which did show in FE), the the DVD drive did show D
In the list C did have a letter.....
Then thoought if nothing else right click..... came up the manually assign letter and did E and F.... low and behold behold there they were in FE. Even diisconnected an plugged back in and auto recognised.

Sitill a mystery though, why neither was not auto recognized and assigned a lette in the first place thoughr. But at least working and now know what to do if it ever happens again.

Thanks for the incentive to look again and try the all else fails right click inspiration.