Simple Ways to Fix SSD Not Showing Up in Windows 10

"SSD not showing up in 'My Computer'"

"I recently installed a Samsung SSD on my Windows 10 computer. However, I found it doesn't show up in My Computer while other hard drives are there. Is there any way to make the SSD visible?"

Newly purchased SSD hard drive not showing in Disk Management

"I've just bought a new Samsung 850 Evo SSD. However, when I connect it to my computer, it doesn't show up in Disk Management. Then, I checked the Device Manager and found that it was listed there. I have no idea where the problem is. Please help!"

Nowadays, more and more users are turning to SSDs for data storage instead of traditional hard drives. However, as its popularity increases, reports of "SSD not showing up" have become more frequent. In addition, issues like "USB flash drive not showing up on Mac" also occur from time to time. This problem seems more prevalent in Windows 10. Have you ever encountered the situation where your SSD is invisible in "My Computer" or Disk Management after plugging it in? Here, we will show you how to solve this issue in four different scenarios in Windows 10.

Scenario 1: SSD Not Showing Due to Missing or Conflicting Drive Letter

If the SSD's drive letter is missing or conflicting with another disk, you can't access it from My Computer. So, when your SSD isn't showing up in Windows 10, try assigning a new drive letter to it first.

Resolve the SSD not showing up issue by assigning a new drive letter:

1. Right-click "This PC" and select "Manage." In the "Storage" menu, click "Disk Management" to open the Windows 10 Disk Management tool. 2. Among the listed SSD partitions, select the one without a drive letter, then right-click it and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths." 3. Next, click the "Add" button, and then select a drive letter from the list. Click "OK" to assign a new drive letter to the SSD.

Scenario 2: The SSD does not appear because it is uninitialzed

If your newly bought SSD is not showing up in Windows Explorer, it might be because the disk is uninitialised and therefore inaccessible to the Disk Management utility. This can also happen to an old SSD that throws the "Unknown disk, uninitialised" error. In either case, you can try initialising the SSD in Windows 10 first to fix the SSD not showing issue, then use a disk data recovery tool to restore your files from the SSD.

Initialize the SSD to Fix Windows 10 Not Showing SSD:

1. Right-click "This PC" and select "Manage." In the Storage menu, click on "Disk Management" to open the Disk Management tool. 2. Locate the SSD you want to initialize and right-click on it. Choose "Initialize Disk." 3. In the "Initialize Disk" dialog box, select the disk you want to initialize. You can choose to use either the Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition style.

How to recover data after SSD initialization:

Note: If Trim is enabled on your SSD, the deleted data cannot be recovered. So it's recommended that you first scan your lost data with the free version of Data Recovery Wizard.

< strong > Step 1. < /strong> In the Disk Mapping, select the X: drive and click on the “Scan” button.

Step 2: The software will scan the entire SSD to find all lost data. You'll see more and more files appearing.

Step 3: After the scan is complete, select the required files and folders from the results and then click the 'Recover' button. Save the recovered data to a location other than the SSD.

Scenario 3: The SSD doesn't show up because the file system is unsupported or damaged

If the file system is unsupported or corrupted, the SSD won't show up. Hence, if none of the above methods work, try fixing the file system by formatting. It's simple! Just go to Disk Management, right-click on the SSD, and select the “Format” option. After resolving the “SSD not showing” issue, try recovering data after formatting with the disk data recovery tool mentioned in the tutorial above.

Case 4: SSD Not Showing Up Due to Disk Driver Issues

Similar to a hard drive, an SSD can be detected most of the time but not show up in My Computer. This might be due to the disk driver not being properly installed. Thus, you can try reinstalling the SSD driver to see if it helps.

1. Insert the SSD into your computer. 2. Type "devmgmt.msc" in the Run box to open Device Manager. 3. In Device Manager, navigate to Universal Serial Bus controllers. It should list the storage devices connected to your PC. 4. Right-click on the SSD and select "Uninstall." 5. Remove the SSD and restart your system. 6. Try reconnecting the SSD to see if the issue has been resolved.