Why my external hard drive not showing up windows 11 file explorer?

If your external hard drive is not showing up in Windows 11 File Explorer, it could be due to several common issues. Here's a breakdown of possible reasons and how to fix them:

#1 USB Port or Cable Issue

Cause: Faulty USB port or cable.

Fix:

1. Try a different USB port.
2. Use another USB cable.
3. Connect the drive to another PC to test.

#2 Drive Not Assigned a Letter

Cause: Windows recognized the drive, but didn’t assign a letter.

Fix:

1. Press Win + X → click Disk Management.
2. Find the external drive in the list.
3. If it has no letter, right-click → Change Drive Letter and Paths → Add.

#3 Drive Is Not Initialized or Formatted

Cause: New or corrupted drive may be uninitialized.

Fix:

1. Open Disk Management.
2. Look for a “Disk X - Not Initialized”.
3. Right-click → Initialize Disk → Choose GPT or MBR.
4. Then right-click the unallocated space → New Simple Volume to format it.

You can try the above tricks to fix external hard drive not showing up windows 11/10 file explorer. Let me know if you need more help!