How to fix USB pen drive/flash drive not
showing in my computer
Depending on the situation you are in, you will need different ways to fix your pen drive that is not showing up on your computer.
Situation 1. Pen drive not showing in File Explorer but in Disk Management
Congratulations, your USB drive is still detectable by the computer, which makes the problem less serious. Generally, if the pen drive is not showing up under File Explorer but can be seen in Disk Management, it will:
- Be marked as unallocated space
- Or be shown as a volume without a drive letter
The possible causes of the phenomenon are USB driver issues and drive letter conflicts.
To fix the pen drive, there are three ways for you. Try the first two methods if the pen drive shows up as unallocated space. If the storage device appears without a drive letter, try method 3 instead.
Method 1. Update the USB pen drive or flash drive drivers
At most times, pen drive detected but not showing in my computer error happens because USB driver is not installed properly which is considered as one of the most widespread failures occurred on USB flash drive devices. So, you can first try to update the USB drivers and check if it can help to display your missing pen drive. Here we take Windows 10 as an example.
Step 1. Connect your pen drive to the PC, right-click on "This PC" (in Windows 10) and choose "Properties".
Step 2. Click "Device Manager" then expand “Disk drives”. Find and right-click the problematic USB drive and select "Update driver"
Step 3. Click "automatically search for driver software online".
Step 4. Wait for the driver to be updated, then reboot your computer. Afterward, you can try to reconnect your USB drive to PC and check whether the USB drive shows up or not.
Method 2. Recover data and create a new volume on the pen drive
If the pen drive is still not showing in my computer after you operate all the above steps, you need to recover your data and create a new volume to make your device usable again. To retrieve data from an inaccessible device, you can use the reliable hard drive recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. It will easily retrieve your important data from the pen drive or any other external USB devices since it can still be detected by Windows. In addition to recovering data from an inaccessible device, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can also perform deleted file recovery, formatted data recovery, RAW drive recovery, and more.
Generally, the unallocated space will show up as a lost partition in EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Select the right partition and then initiate the scanning process.
Step 1. Run USB data recovery software.
Connect the USB flash drive to your computer and launch EaseUS USB data recovery software on your PC. Select your USB drive which marks as a removable disk, and click "Scan" to start finding your lost files.
Step 2. Scan all lost files from USB.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will thoroughly scan your USB flash drive and find all your lost data on it. After the scanning process, use the Filter feature to filter a specific file type. You can check and preview found USB files in this program.
Step 3. Restore all lost files from USB.
A double-click will allow you to preview the file results. Choose the target files and click "Recover" to save them to a secure location on your PC or other external storage devices.
After getting back all your files, you can now create a new volume on your pen drive to make it ready for data storage.
Step 1. Go to "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Step 2. Right-click on the unallocated space and choose "New simple volume...".
Step 3. Follow the wizard to finish the remaining process.
Method 3. Change the drive letter of your pen drive
If the drive letter of your pen drive is the same as the drive letter of one of the partitions existing on your computer, your pen drive will not show up in Windows. In addition, it will show up with no drive letter under Disk Management. The solution to this problem is quite easy, all you need to do is to change the drive letter of your device.
Step 1. Go to "This PC", right-click it and choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Step 2. Right-click the volume on your USB device and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".
Step 3. In the new window, click "Change".
Step 4. Assign a new drive letter to your pen drive and click "OK".
If there is any data loss on your pen drive after changing the drive letter, don't hesitate to perform USB data recovery using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
Situation 2. Pen drive is not showing in File Explorer and Disk Management
Things get worse if the pen drive neither shows in File Explorer nor in Disk Management, which indicates that your pen drive is not detected by the computer at all. This could result from simple connection issues, USB driver issues or physical damage or the USB drive. Thus, the fixes for this situation are as follows:
Method 1. Check USB connection
Don't be unwilling to try the easy one first. The minor issue may also result in annoying problems. Try to change the USB port you insert your pen drive into or the computer you connect your device to, and then see whether the problem "pen drive not detected" remains.
Method 2. Update/reinstall driver
When there is something wrong with your device drivers, it's possible your pen drive will not show up in Windows File Explorer or Disk Management. To exclude this cause, you can either update your device driver by following method 1 in situation 1 or reinstall your device driver:
Step 1. Connect your pen drive to your computer, right-click "This PC", and choose "Properties" > "Devices Manager".
Step 2. Click on "Disk drives", right-click on your USB drive that is not showing and choose "Uninstall device".
Step 3. In the prompt asking you to confirm the removal, click "OK".
Step 4. When the uninstalling process has done, restart your computer and reconnect the USB flash drive/external hard drive to the PC. After the computer restarts, the driver will be automatically installed.
Method 3. Send for manual repair
If your device is damaged or dead, it won't show up on your computer. Besides, you will not be able to recover data using a data recovery software tool since the device cannot be detected. In this case, you will need manual data recovery services in order to rescue your data. You may be interested in data recovery cost if you are considering manual repair.
The bottom line
All the solutions provided above are workable ways to fix a pen drive that is not showing or detected by your computer. If you don't know the specific cause of the issue, you can try them one by one to have a try. Hope one of the fixes can solve the issue "pen drive not showing" perfectly for you.
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