External USB drives not recognized after Win 10 clean install

I just reinstalled Windows 10 Pro (newest version 2004) on my Dell i5 PC. This was a clean install to a reformatted drive C partition, part of a 240Gb SSD. I also have a second internal HD of 4Tb, which is partitioned into 4 1Tb drives.

Prior to the reinstall, both Seagate 6Tb and Seagate 5Tb external drives were seen and accessible in File Explorer and Disk Management. I have a third external WD 1Tb drive which was also connected prior to reinstall, and this drive does show up in File Explorer and Disk Management. The other internal 4 1Tb partitions all show up in File Explorer and Disk Management.

I have disconnected both the 5Tb and 6Tb drives, shut down and restarted, then reconnected drives but they are still not being detected.

Any help would really be appreciated.

Ken

Thanks for your response, Paul.

No, the external drives were not disconnected prior to the redo of Win10. BUT...

I have never disconnected external drives before, and I've done reinstalls many time and never had this happen before.

And, don't forget, the 1Tb WD external drive, which was connected before and after the redo, DOES show up after.

Ken

KenY7744 said:

I have disconnected both the 5Tb and 6Tb drives, shut down and restarted, then reconnected drives but they are still not being detected.

Do they show in Disk Management but not in File Explorer? If so, then you may need to enable Automount.

Enable or Disable Automount of New Disks and Drives in Windows

Thanks, Bree.

No, the 5Tb and 6Tb drives do not show in either File Explorer or Disk Management.

I will read the link you provided re: automount.

Ken

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Bree said:

Do they show in Disk Management but not in File Explorer? If so, then you may need to enable Automount.
Enable or Disable Automount of New Disks and Drives in Windows

Using Option 1 in the linked page, it shows that Automount is enabled. Restarting PC still fails to show the 5 and 6Tb drives in Disk Mgt and Explorer.

Per Paul's comments, I am considering disconnecting the drives, reformatting Drive C and doing the Win10 install again.

I will post again after I do this tomorrow (Friday 6/19/20).

idgat

How did you do the clean install? As it's 5TB and 6TB not showing, and 1TB showing sounds like it's a GPT/MBR partitioning recognition problem. What's the partition table for each of the drives?

Thanks for your response, idgat.

The clean install:
1. Boot from 16Gb thumb drive prepared with Media Creation Tool
2. After Win10 Setup loads, I deleted all partitions related to the old install on Drive C, including the recovery and system partitions. I have Drive 0 (240Gb physical SSD) partitioned into 2 logical drives: Drive C is about 150Gb and Drive D is about 82Gb. The 150Gb partition showed as unallocated space. Setup then created and formatted the unallocated space back to Drive C and the recovery and system partitions. Drive 1, a 4Tb HDD internal is partitioned into 4 1Tb logical drives, but was not changed from before the reinstall.
3. Ran the install

The 5Tb and 6Tb drives are both separate external physical USB drives, not partitioned into logical drives; as is the 1Tb external drive, no partitions.

Not sure I understand what you mean by "GPT/MBR recognition problem." Those external drives were not changed from how they were before the new install of Win10. I have done reinstalls before and these drives were always recognized as soon as the new Win10 got done installing and setting up.

Still am going to reinstall with all external drives disconnected and after Win10 is done installing, I will reconnect all external drives. Will report results.

Thanks again.
Ken

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I have reinstalled Window 10 Pro with all external drives disconnected. After the install was complete, I was able to reconnect all external drives and Windows had no problem recognizing them.

Thanks to Paul Black for providing the solution.

Thanks to all others who gave suggestions as well.

Ten Forums NEVER disappoints.

Ken