If your new hard drive isn’t appearing in File Explorer after installation, it’s not uncommon. This issue is more frequent in desktop PCs, as it usually involves storage drives rather than the primary system drive.
Assuming you’ve checked the cables etc, then the most likely cause is that the drive needs to be initialised, formatted and assigned a drive letter. I’ll show you how to do that below, it isn’t difficult.
Hard Drive Not Showing In File Explorer.
After opening the computer and fitting the drive, you reboot your system and open File Explorer expecting to see the hard drive listed, only to find that it isn’t there.
The system drive, C: drive is there. And maybe any other drives that you already had.
But the new drive is absent.
You Need To Initialise The Disk.
New hard drives are generally supplied pre-formatted. As such they’ll appear immediately in File Explorer. But occasionally you’ll receive one that hasn’t been formatted.
Another cause of a hard drive not showing in File Explorer could be that it was “wiped”. That’s to say, it has had all it’s data completely erased, often called securely erased.
Securely erasing a disk will not only remove all traces of the data that was previously on the drive, but it’ll also delete the formatting info, such as the File Allocation Table.
All you need to do to get the drive to appear in File Explorer is to initialise the disk.
Click the Start button and type “computer management”. Click Computer Management (System).
Initialising The Disk.
When the Computer Management screen opens, click on Disk Management in the left hand navigation pane.
Windows will open the Initialise Disk popup. The only thing to note here is the partition style.
Assuming you’re using either Windows 10 or Windows 11, then the default option GPT (GUID Partition Table) is probably the one that you want to use.
You can opt for the older MBR (Master Boot Record), but that would only be for older versions of Windows.
Click the OK button to initialise the disk.
It Doesn’t Appear In Disk Management.
If your hard drive doesn’t appear in Disk Management, then there really is something wrong. The most likely culprit is the cables, particularly the data cable.
Replace the data cable with a known good one if you can.
Check the SATA connections on your motherboard. Use a different one if possible.
Check that the drive is working. I know that’s obvious, but you can always pick up a faulty one. Try mounting it into a different PC.
And finally, check your UEFI/BIOS. Does the drive appear in the there. Sometimes, especially with NVME drives, you may need to change a setting in the UEFI to enable it.
An Unallocated Drive Won’t Appear In File Explorer.
The drive will appear in Disk Management as Unallocated.
You need to format it and assign a drive letter.
Formatting The Drive
Windows will perform all the necessary formatting on the hard drive for you.
- Right click on the Unallocated drive.
- The Welcome to the New Simple Volume Wizard will open. Click the Next button.
- The Volume size is the capacity of the hard disk partition that you’re going to create. Generally you’ll just accept the default value (which will be the total size of the disk).
- On the Assign Drive Letter screen, Windows will automatically assign the next available letter. But you can give the new hard drive any available drive letter that you want.
The Volume Label.
The volume label is the name that’ll appear next to the hard drive when it appears in File Explorer.
By default, Windows will give the new hard drive the volume label “New Volume”. But you can change the volume label to be a more descriptive name if you wish.
If you’re using the drive for a specific purpose, it does help you to quickly identify it.
Click the Next button and then you’ll see a confirmation screen. Just click the Finish button on that and you’re done.
New Hard Drive Shows Up In File Explorer.
After completing the disk initialisation and formatting, you’ll see the new hard drive appearing in File Explorer.
It’ll have the drive letter and volume label that you selected earlier and will be ready to use.
Summary.
When your new drive doesn’t show up it can be a bit baffling. I’ve done it myself. The immediate response is that there’s something wrong, either with the connections or the drive itself.
But most of the time, it just needs to be initialised in Disk Management. Hope this helps you out.