How do I "SEE" a USB drive

MouldyOldDough

I have a USB drive connected to my laptop with an old 1Tb HDD in it

I can see it under control panel / device manager - but not in explorer

Why is that and how do I see it ?

Vitor

Use Disk Manager to check if the drive has partitions and is formatted in a Windows filesystem. The drive could have been used for Linux Mint and formatted as EXT4.

fenlander_uk

Is it formatted/partitioned?

Paradigm

Usually it's due to a corrupt file system, a partition not recognised by windows or it's unallocated. Does it show in disk management?

Could also be a failed HDD

RavingMad

When you plug it in does Windows not pop up with a message of any kind?

mta999

It could be ok but not have a drive letter assigned

go to management / disk management and see if there is a drive letter and if not then assign one eg D:

MouldyOldDough

OK I have allocated it a drive letter "D" but it now wants me to format it - the whole idea was to see what was on it !

Vitor

Now you know what was on it…nothing.

MouldyOldDough

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82128158#Comment_82128158

Now - yes!

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82128205#Comment_82128205

Is there another question then as your original question has now been answered?

mta999

Assigning the letter D does not change what was on the drive

If it wants you to format it then it means to drive is flagged as unformatted

That does not mean there is no data on it of course (could be a corrupted file system). You could try investigating utilities to extract data from a drive that is flagged as unformatted