Asus Z170-A Motherboard not showing external hard drives

matthewcroton · 31 Oct 2015

I have a new custom build which I have built and have installed Windows on. The issue I'm having is that when I plug in an external drive, they are not appearing on the PC.

They work on other laptops which I've tested and all the USB ports work on the new PC which I tested with the keyboard and mouse so I'm not sure what the issue is.

When I plug the drives in I get a light on them so it's being powered but not showing up.

I've read about having to use a switch to 'power' the drives but I'm not sure if such a switch is on this motherboard.

Any suggestions would be appreciated .

Solarstarshines · 31 Oct 2015

Hit start go to my computer Right click Manage and you should be able to manage the hard drives to appear on the system

By the way this is called Disc Management

matthewcroton · 31 Oct 2015

I have tried this before but for some reason the drives do not show up in Disc Management despite being plugged in.

essenbe · 31 Oct 2015

Matthew, I don't have a Z170 board, so I am not familiar with them. But, go into Bios and make sure Legacy USB is enabled, then try. If that does not work, try plugging the drives in and shutting down the computer then restarting it and see if the drives are detected.

matthewcroton · 31 Oct 2015

Thanks for the reply, I will try this later today when I'm next at the PC.

essenbe · 31 Oct 2015

Ok, have you also installed your Motherboard drivers? Go to Device Manager and see if you see any yellow triangles there too.

matthewcroton · 31 Oct 2015

I haven't had chance to install any drivers yet so this could be why. I plan on installing them tonight/tomorrow.

AddRAM · 31 Oct 2015

You have to install all your drivers, then it`s play time.

As suggested, open up device manager, it`ll show you all your problems.

All your drivers are on the motherboard cd.

essenbe · 31 Oct 2015

matthewcroton said:

I haven't had chance to install any drivers yet so this could be why. I plan on installing them tonight/tomorrow.

You'll get more current drivers from your Motherboard's web site plus you can avoid installing most of the 'junk' included on the CD.

ThrashZone · 31 Oct 2015

Hi,
According to the manual the mobo cd is second item after os install :/
Being it's z170 the drivers are probably fairly recent :)
Third is load all windows updates
Then your security
Then any third party software so it seems you skipped some steps.