Windows 7: External Hard Drive Not Recognized in Windows Each Time Via USB

There are many articles here within the forum and elsewhere on how to use Disk Management to get your External USB Hard Drive to be recognized in Windows so I won't repeat that process here.

The lack of external hard drive recognition issue may continue and if it does what a pain it is to have to go through Disk Management every single time to get Windows to see your drive.

If this is your issue follow these steps as there’s actually a very simple fix to all of this.

You have to get the drive to show up as mentioned above in Disk management. Once this is done, go to a command prompt (DOS prompt). There are usually shortcuts off the start menu for this DOS prompt or hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard and tap the “R” key. The Run windows will appear. In the Run box type: cmd
at the flashing cursor type this string:
chkdsk /f g:
so it will look something like this:
c:\users\anthony\chkdsk /f g:
[NOTE: g: is an example. you replace the g: with whatever your external drive letter is along with the colon]
you’ll be asked to dismount the drive. type Y when prompted – let the chdksk utility run its course until you see the drive letter with the flashing cursor such as
c:\users\anthony _
type: exit
you're are done.
To test, safely remove the drive using the Windows safe remove option near the clock. Once your cable is removed, wait a few seconds plug back in an walla! your drive will appear normally without going through all the above steps again and again

Hello Rev try this. Download and make a bootable disk of Ubuntu Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu set the BIOS to optical boot and stick the disk in go to TRY NOT install and let it run any drives attached should show up in the left hand side of the Ubuntu screen.

This is handy to keep if the Windows completely crashes and you want to get onto the net etc and see disks that Windows will not.