As the title says, Windows 10 doesn't see my external drives, but it does see a USB stick.
Background: I have shrunk C: Drive, created a simple volume with disk management and it shows as new volume? F:, which is behind my Data drive.
I don't know if this is coincidence or if working on C: had anything to do with not seeing my externals.
Anyone got any ideas? I need one of them for my MR backups! Both are Seagates, BTW.
Hello @Wynona,
DoesMini Tool Partition Wizard[ Portable ] see them? . . .
About Mini Tool Partition Wizard:
Mini Tool provides users with portable partition software to better configure disk and partitions, bringing brand new user experience and overcoming the many shortcomings in Windows Disk Management.
Both 32-bit & 64-bit downloads available.
> Mini Tool Partition Wizard – FREE
> Mini Tool Partition Wizard [ Portable ] - FREE
I hope this helps.
Messing around with the four USB ports on the front of the computer seems to have worked.
At first I thought "port 3" was non-working, but once my Seagate Backup Plus (5 TB) was working in port 1, I plugged the other Seagate Backup Plus (1 TB) into port 4 and it showed up too. Logitech keyboard/mouse combo dongle is in port 2, and finally, I plugged one of my Western Digital Passports (1 TB) into port 3 and lo and behold! it works also.
So, at this point, I don't have a clue about what I did or didn't do to get things to work. Other than checking to see if MiniTool could see them and switching drives around, I've done nothing else.
Magic? Only the Shadow knows . . .
I'm marking this thread solved, although I don't know how it got solved . . .
Try resetting automount. Run diskpart from an admin command prompt then automount enable. Also try automount scrub to remove old entries.
In Minitool or Disk Management, change the Drive letter of the drive to one that is much lower in the alphabet, like S: or Whatever so it won't conflict with any other drives.
Good morning, Steve.
Since my computer can now see all of my external drives from all four ports, is there a reason for doing the above?
I'm in uncharted territory and if it works, I'm not inclined to try fixing it.And so far, the issue seems to be fixed. The system can now see everything I have plugged into the four USB ports, so . . .
Let me know if what you've suggested will make things run smoother (as I suspect, maybe).
Which drive are you talking about, Spunk?
The Windows 11 partition figured out which letter it was supposed to be, which is F:. No, I'm not really happy about that, but, the computer came with C: (512 GB SSD [I chopped it in half for Win 11 partition]) and D: (1 TB Data Drive). What with the other partitions Windows made for itself, F: was next in line.
As I plug in each External it assigns itself a drive letter. The Seagate Backup (5 TB) is H, The Seagate Backup (1 TB) is I, and the Western Digital is G:.
So, lots of drives, but none I would think needs changing?
As I said above, I'm in uncharted territory, so ready to learn . . .
You can change any drives Drive Letter in Disk Management, or Minitool to whatever you want. Also, if a drive is not mounting and is healthy, it may be assigned a drive letter that is assigned to another drive, on the rare occasion when Windows mixes them up. Reassigning a new drive letter avoids conflicts. If you have an app or backup that is automatically assigned a specific Drive letter to run it's program, you will need to change the drive letter in the app as well.Which drive are you talking about, Spunk?
The Windows 11 partition figured out which letter it was supposed to be, which is F:. No, I'm not really happy about that
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