hp external hard drive not working on windows 10

[gl2734]

I have a hp external hard drive which i am trying to use on my windows 10 computer. When i plug it into my laptop, the laptop does not recognize the external hard drive. How can I fixe this issue? I need to get into my hard drive and pull of importnat files

[WAWood]

@gl2734

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

Could be a simple matter of Windows not assigning the drive a letter by default.

Enter "Disk Management" into the search area of your taskbar.  That will open the Disk Management console which will then list all the drives in your PC along with all their partitions.

Scroll down the list of drives and if you see the external drive, then report back here what it says.

[gl2734]

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@gl2734 wrote:

I have a hp external hard drive which i am trying to use on my windows 10 computer. When i plug it into my laptop, the laptop does not recognize the external hard drive. How can I fixe this issue? I need to get into my hard drive and pull of importnat files

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i see disk 0and it has 931 gb

then i see disk 1 - unkown not initalized

and finally

cd rom section

i am going to assume Disk 1 is my external hard drive. how can i fix the issue

[mdklassen]

> i see disk 0and it has 931 gb

Presumably, this is your 1000 GB (1 TB) internal disk-drive.

> then I see disk 1 - unknown not initialized

> i am going to assume Disk 1 is my external hard drive.

You are correct.

> how can i fix the issue?

Hmm.

An external disk-drive has three major components:

* the casing,

* electronic adapter (to "talk" over USB to your computer),

* a disk-drive (the same technology as an "internal" disk-drive).

One (or more) of those components has failed.

Presumably, the casing is not the problem.

That adapter cannot be replaced, except by the manufacturer of the disk-drive.

But, it is possible that its electronics have failed.

However, since it is responding to "Disk Management", it probably is OK.

So, it is time for something "drastic" -- namely disassembly of the case, disconnecting that adapter from the disk-drive, and connecting the disk-drive directly to a desktop computer, as a "secondary" disk-drive. 

If its files/folders can be accessed, you can copy those files/folders. 

If not, then the disk-drive has "failed", and only a professional "Data Recovery Service" can disassemble the disk-drive, fix it, just long-enough to copy the files/folders onto a brand-new disk-drive, and charge you a LARGE fee for their services.