External HDD shows up in Device Manager but not My Computer

Hi guys,

I just tried to install Ubuntu from a USB stick alongside Windows 10, and have managed to make my external HDD disappear

Halfway through my installation of Ubuntu I noticed that the software was trying to install from a 500GB drive (my external HDD) instead of the 8GB pen drive I was trying to install from. I quit the installation hoping I hadn't done any damage, but apparently I have...

My external HDD still shows up as a named device in device manager, but it's not in My Computer. Looking at Disk Management you can see it as 'Disk 2' (see image), but all the options to Format etc are grayed out.

Is there any way to get it working again? Ideally keeping the data that was on there, but if not then just reformatting.

Thanks,

J

I would first disconnect it. Restart the computer. Then reconnect it.

Then see what MiniTool Partition Wizard can do with it:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

I wonder if it could be as simple as using Disk Management to assign a letter to the drive?

Since it doesn't show a drive letter I'd try setting one.

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm a little overwhelmed with all those options in MiniTool partition wizard though - can you please provide some guidance on what I should be trying to do? Thanks

As for assigning a drive letter, that option is grayed out when I right click on the drive in Disk Management. is there another way to do this?

jaysouffle said:

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm a little overwhelmed with all those options in MiniTool partition wizard though - can you please provide some guidance on what I should be trying to do? Thanks

I just right-click a drive or partition in Windows Disk Management to assign or change a drive letter.

Berton said:

I just right-click a drive or partition in Windows Disk Management to assign or change a drive letter.

this option is grayed out

It appears to have a partition type on the drive that Windows does not recognize, such as ext4. If there is nothing on the drive you need to save then delete all the partitions on the drive - possibly reinitialize it to MBR or GPT partitioning type, and create a new NTFS partition on it. Then you can assign it a drive letter.

In MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can right click on the existing partition and select Explore to see if Partition Wizard can read anything on it.

Thank you all for the responses, appreciate it! NavyLCDR's last suggestion worked perfectly.