11 Fixes for Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working/Showing Up

1TB Toshiba External Hard Drive Is Not Working and Undetectable, Help!

"Hi there, do you know how to make external hard drive show up in PC when it failed to be detected? I have 1TB Toshiba external hard drive with almost 500GB data saved on it. It suddenly disappeared from my PC but the light of the drive is still on. What's going on with my drive? Do know you how to fix this issue?"

External hard drive not showing up or detected is just one of the many situations that indicate your Toshiba hard drive is not working. To help you fix your problematic device quickly, you should specify your situation according to the steps below before applying the fixes for "Toshiba external hard drive not working".

Step 1. Connect your Toshiba hard disk to your computer using the Toshiba cable.

Step 2. Go to "This PC" > "Manage" > "Disk Management".

Then you will see yourself in one of the following cases:

• The Toshiba disk is showing up in both Disk Management and This PC but is inaccessible
• The hard drive is detected but not showing any files
• The Toshiba external hard drive is not showing in Disk Management or in This PC
• The Toshiba hard drive is showing up in Disk Management but not on This PC
• The Toshiba external hard drive light blinking but not working

Fixes for Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working

When your Toshiba hard drive is not working, you may find yourself in one of the situations listed above. Identify your situation and follow to see the possible causes and the solutions to fix your Toshiba hard drive.

Fix 1. Toshiba External Hard Drive Is Detectable But Inaccessible

Possible causes: MBR corruption, I/O device error, file system errors...

You may see your Toshiba external hard drive state is "Not Initialized" or "No Media" in Disk Managemen, your disk shows RAW file system or the partition on it is lost (showing as unallocated space). All make your device inaccessible. To fix "Toshiba external hard drive not working" in the last two situations, you can:

Method 1. Recover Data from the Toshiba External Hard Drive and Format It

If the partition on your Toshiba disk is RAW, don't worry. You can use the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover data from the inaccessible disk and then format the device to assign a new file system to it, which will make it usable again.

To recover data from your RAW drive:

Step 1. Use a correct USB cable to connect your external hard drive to your computer. Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and you will see your external disk under External drives. This software supports all the popular external disk brands, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, LaCie, SanDisk, Samsung, etc. 

Select the external hard drive and then click the "Scan" button. 

Step 2. As soon as the scan process starts, the software will find more and more lost and deleted data and display the data in the scan results. The recovered data will be nicely organized. You can quickly find the target files/folders by file type or search in the search box with exact file name. 

Step 3. You can preview the files found by EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard's scanning algorithms. Then, select files and click "Recover". To avoid data overwriting, we recommend that you save the recovered data to a different drive than the original Seagate drive.

To format your Toshiba disk:

Step 1. Open "This PC", right-click your RAW drive or RAW disk and choose "Formatted".

Step 2. Set a file system (NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT) according to your needs and click "Start".

Step 3. In the Warning window, click "OK" to start formatting your storage medium.

Method 2. Recover Data from the Toshiba Disk and Create Partition

You may see your Toshiba hard drive showing up as unallocated space because the partition is lost. In such a case, you can also use the EaseUS EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard software to recover data from your Toshiba external hard drive and then create new partitions on it to make it usable. Since the way to perform data recovery has been detailed already, here we will show you how to create new partitions on your disk only.

Step 1. Right-click "This PC", choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".

Step 2. Right-click the unallocated space and choose "New Simple Volume".

Step 3. Follow the wizard to finish the remaining process.

Fix 2. The Toshiba External Hard Drive Is Detected But Not Showing Files

If you find your Toshiba disk isn't showing any files, you can refer to the article about "pen drive not showing data" to make your files show up again.

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If you are having a similar issue on your hard drive, you may directly try the fixes below. 

Fix 3. Toshiba External Hard Drive Is Not Showing Up in This PC and Disk Management

Possible causes: Connection issues, outdated Toshiba external hard drive driver, physical damage on the disk

Based on the possible reasons why your Toshiba external hard drive is not working, you have three methods to try:

Method 1. Check the Hard Drive Connection

There are many tips you can try to check the connection between your Toshiba external hard drive and your computer.

• Connect your Toshiba external hard drive to another USB port, including the rear ones, on your computer
• Use the original cable to connect your hard drive
• Use another cable to connect your Toshiba hard disk
• Connect your Toshiba hard drive to another computer

Method 2. Update the Toshiba External Hard Drive Driver

If the Toshiba hard drive is still not working, try to update the device driver. An outdated or corrupted hard drive driver will cause some problems while using the device. Since your hard drive is not detected by the PC, you cannot update the driver via Device Manager. Go to the official site of Toshiba, then download and install the latest driver by entering your model or the serial number of your disk.

Method 3. Send for Manual Repair

If you are sure there is physical corruption on your Toshiba external hard drive or the disk is still not working after trying the methods above, you are recommended to send the Toshiba hard drive for data recovery services.

Fix 4. Toshiba External Hard Drive Is Showing Up In Disk Management But Not in This PC

Possible Causes: Toshiba external hard drive driver issues, drive letter conflicts

A Toshiba external hard drive that is not working in such a case may be caused by a problematic device driver or a drive letter conflict between your Toshiba external disk and the partition on your computer. The solutions are easy:

Method 1. Update Toshiba External Hard Drive Driver

Since your device is detectable, you can update the driver via the Device Manager.

Step 1. Connect the Toshiba external hard drive to 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 your PC and check whether the USB drive shows up or not.

Method 2. Change Drive Letter

Step 1. Go to "This PC", right-click it, and choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".

Step 2. Right-click the volume on your USB flash drive/external hard drive and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

Step 3. In the new window, click "Change".

Step 4. Assign a new drive letter to your USB and click "OK".

Fix 5. Toshiba External Hard Drive Light Blinking But Not Working

This is a common issue that happens to external hard drives from all the brands including Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, and more. The solutions to "Toshiba external hard drive not working" in such a case are the same as the ones to "Seagate external hard drive light blinking but not working", regardless of the brands.

Other Fixes for Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working

In addition to the commonest cases, there are other situations in which your Toshiba external hard drive is not working properly. Thus, there are other tips worth trying if the methods above fail to bring your device back to normal.

Fix 1.Check Power Management for USB Hub

• Click Start, type: devmgmt.msc, and hit Enter.
• Open Device Manager and expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers".
• Right-click on the USB Root Hub, click on "Properties".
• Go to Power Management and uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

If this doesn't work, try Fix 2.

Fix 2. Reboot PC into Safe Mode 

In order to thoroughly check out and find the exact problem, you can try to reboot the PC into Safe Mode to see where Toshiba external hard drive can work or not:

• Go to Settings, click on "Update & security".
• Tab on "Recovery", select "Advanced Startup" and click "Restart now".
• PC will automatically boot into another Startup Settings screen, press F4 to initiate PC reboot into Safe Mode.
• Then check whether the Toshiba external hard disk can be detected or not.

If not, don't worry. Effective fixes and solutions are available to help to fix Toshiba's external hard drive not working issue right now.

Disk check can effectively fix and repair some internal errors on your storage devices, even including the hard disk drive not working issue. Here you have two options to get this issue fixed:

Fix 3. Fix Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working with Free Partition Manager

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master Free and right-click the partition that you want to check by clicking "Check File System".

Step 2. Click "Start" to continue and let this program check and fix all found errors on the Toshiba external hard drive.

Step 3. Click Finish to complete the process.

Fix 4. Fix Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working by Running CMD

• Press "Win + R" to open the Run dialog and type cmd to open Command Prompt by hitting "Enter".
• Type chkdsk /f c: ("C" is the drive letter of your Toshiba external hard drive) and hit "Enter" to run the disk check process.
• Type exit to finish the process when the disk check process is finished.

Then you can check to see whether this has worked to repair your Toshiba external hard drive or not.

EaseUS CleanGenius is a user-friendly computer fixing tool that is both safe and lightweight. It's a perfect alternative to CHKDSK command. Use this one-click tool to fix the damaged file system easily.

Step 1. DOWNLOAD EaseUS CleanGenius on your computer and complete the installation.

Step 2. Run the software. Click "Optimization", and then choose "File Showing" . 

Step 3. Select the drive with a corrupted file system. Tick the "Check and fix file system error" option and click "Execute".

Step 4. Wait the tool performs the repairing task. After that, click the "here" button to check the drive.

• Click on Start and type devmgmt.msc to open Device Manager by hitting Enter.
• Expand "Universal Serial Universal Serial Bus controllers", right-click every USB device found there, and select "Uninstall".

Then check out whether any device shows up as unrecognized or not:

• If the Toshiba external hard drive shows as unrecognized, go to the driver's tab and delete/uninstall the driver. Then check out whether the external hard drive shows up in My Computer/My PC or not.
• If it doesn't show up, reboot or restart the PC.
• If it shows up but disappears later, repeat the above steps and go to Disk Management, change the drive letter of your Toshiba external hard drive and reconnect it to PC to let the PC detect it again.

The Botton Line

When your Toshiba external hard drive is not working, figure out the specific situation and then follow the corresponding solutions to fix it, which is more time-consuming than trying the tips one by one. If none of the fixes help to fix "Toshiba hard drive not working", other than sending the device for manual repair, you can also get it replaced if it is still under warranty.

Toshiba External Hard Drive Not Working FAQs

We have three frequently asked questions to help you learn more information about the Toshiba external hard drive not working error.

What should I do to fix Toshiba external hard drive not responding?

There are three ways to fix the external hard drive not responding on your computer.

1. 1. Check and change external hard drives' connection cables.
2. 2. Connect to another computer to check the USB port's condition.
3. 3. Check the power management for the USB hub.

What causes a Toshiba external hard drive to stop working?

The following situations can cause a Toshiba external hard drive to stop working:

1. 1. Physical connection failure between the Toshiba external hard drive and your computer.
2. 2. USB power management failure.
3. 3. The Toshiba external hard drive has not been formatted correctly.
4. 4. The drivers need to be updated.

Can I recover data from a Toshiba external hard drive?

You can recover data and deleted files from a Toshiba external hard drive with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.

1. 1. Install and run this software on your PC.
2. 2. Connect your Toshiba external hard drive to your computer.
3. 3. Scan for the lost files on your Toshiba external hard drive.
4. 4. Recover the lost files on the Toshiba external hard drive.