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12 January 2024  John Weaver  Senior Program Developer
 

Summary
Learn how to fix maxtor external hard drive not recognized by your computer and recover your data with the help of this article.



Table of contents

table iconI. Reasons why Maxtor external hard disk cannot be recognized and preliminary solutions
table iconII. How to restore important data in Maxtor external hard disk?
table iconIII. The solution to the unrecognized Maxtor external hard disk
maxtor external hard drive not recognized

I. Reasons why Maxtor external hard disk cannot be recognized and preliminary solutions

1. The reason why the Maxtor external hard disk cannot be recognized

If your Maxtor mobile hard drive cannot be found in the file explorer after it is connected to the computer, the reasons may be as follows:
●The connection between the external hard disk and the computer is loose, the USB port is faulty or the data cable is faulty, etc.
●The external hard disk is a brand new hard disk, and it may need to be initialized when it is connected to the computer for the first time before it can be displayed and used normally. After opening Disk Management, you may find that its status is displayed as “unallocated”, “uninitialized” or “unknown”.
●After installing or updating the Windows 10 system, the version of the hard disk driver in the computer is too old, so the hard disk cannot be recognized normally.
●The external hard disk itself has no default drive letter or hidden attributes, so Windows 10 system will not automatically assign a drive letter (drive letter) to the hard disk, and the hard disk without a drive letter cannot be displayed in the file explorer.
●The system cannot recognize the hard disk due to the failure of the external hard disk or the presence of bad sectors. (See solutions to bad sectors)
the reason why partition lost on SD card

2. Preliminary solution to the failure of Maxtor external hard disk to be recognized

Method 1: Replace the USB port or data line
There is a problem with the connection between the external hard disk and the computer, which may cause the external hard disk to be unrecognized, that is, the hard disk cannot be found in the file explorer and disk management. It is recommended that you eject the hard disk safely and then connect it to another USB port for checking. If the hard disk still cannot be found normally, try to replace the hard disk data cable.
Method 2: Initialize the disk and create a new simple volume
When connecting a new external hard disk to a computer for the first time, it may require initialization before it can be used. If the hard disk does not appear in the file explorer, check its status in disk management. If it shows as “not initialized” or “unallocated,” it is advised to initialize the disk and create a new simple volume. Follow these steps to do so:
Press the Windows icon + X key at the same time, and select (Disk Management) in the menu. If the hard disk is displayed as “not initialized”, then right-click the external hard disk, select (Initialize Disk), and then follow the instructions to complete the operation.
how to initialize disk on windows
If the external hard disk partition is displayed as “unallocated”, right-click the unallocated partition, select (New Simple Volume), and then set the capacity, drive letter, file system, etc. for this partition. Please check: Features and differences of FAT32, exFAT and NTFS file systems.
create simple volume for SD card
After completing the above operations, you can open the file explorer to check whether the external hard disk is displayed normally. If you are not in the above two situations, and you are worried that the important data in the Maxtor external hard disk will be lost, as long as the external hard disk can be displayed in the disk management, you can try to use professional data recovery software to scan and recover the external hard disk. File recovery. If there is no important data in the external hard disk, you can check it directly the third part The solution to the unrecognized Maxtor external hard disk.

II. How to restore important data in Maxtor external hard disk?

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter is a software specially used to restore various data files. When you accidentally delete important files, empty the recycle bin, or format the disk/storage, you can use this tool to retrieve the lost data. The software covers four functional modules, including file recovery, format recovery, partition recovery and image creation, which can help you solve all data loss problems in an all-round way.
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Image creation Create a partition image to read and back up data;

Supported devices SD card, SDHC, SDXC, USB flash drive, hard disk and computer.

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Multiple scan modes Fast partition/whole partition/whole disk scan;

Supported devices SD card/USB/hard disk.

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2. How to use Renee Undeleter to restore data in Maxtor external hard disk?

Step 1: Download, install, and run Renee Undeleter on the computer. Select the (Whole Disk Scan) option on the main interface.

Do not download and install software to the hard disk that needs to restore data.

select whole disk scan in renee undeleter
Data recovery function introduction:
Fast Partition Scan – Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Whole Partition Scan – Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Whole Disk Scan – Analyze and get partition information and perform a full scan of the entire partition.
Image Creation – You can create a mirror image for a partition to back up the current partition state.
Step 2: Next, select the external hard disk that needs to recover data, and click (Next).
select a disk to recover in renee undeleter
Step 3: Please wait patiently for the scan. This process will find out all the partitions in the hard disk. Then the “Select the partition you need to scan” window will pop up, and you can select a specific partition to scan. If not selected, all partitions will be scanned automatically, and more files can be found, but it will take longer.
Step 4: You can preview the files during the scanning process. If all the required files have been found, you can check the files, and then click the (Recover) button to restore the files to other disks of the computer.
select taget files to recover with renee undeleter

III. The solution to the unrecognized Maxtor external hard disk

1. Update the hard disk driver

Step 1: Connect the Maxtor external hard disk to the computer, right-click the (Start) menu, and select (Device Manager).
Step 2: Find the hard disk in Device Manager (you can try to find it in “Disk Drive”). Right-click on the hard disk and select the (Update driver) option.
update driver-disk
Step 3: Select (Search automatically for updated driver software). Then follow the prompts to complete the operation. After updating, check whether the external hard disk can be displayed normally.
update Driver Confirm

2. Set the Maxtor external hard disk to online mode

If your Maxtor mobile hard drive is offline, it cannot be displayed in Windows File Explorer. You can follow the steps below to make it online so that it appears in File Explorer.
Step 1: Keep the Maxtor external hard disk connected to the computer, right-click (Start) menu, and open (Disk Management).
Step 2: Locate the Maxtor Portable Hard Drive and right click on it, then click (Online).

3. Change the hard drive letter

The Maxtor external hard disk cannot be recognized, or there may be a problem with the drive letter, which can be solved by changing or reassigning the drive letter. Proceed as follows:
Step 1: Press the Windows icon + X key at the same time, select (Disk Management) in the menu, right-click the target hard disk, and select (Change Drive Letter and Paths).
change drive letter in disk management
Step 2: Click (Add), assign a drive letter to the hard disk, and then click (OK). Then open the file explorer, select (this computer), and check whether the hard disk is displayed.
add a drive letter

4. Clear the hidden or no default drive letter attribute

If you’re having trouble locating your Maxtor mobile hard disk every time you connect it to your computer, it could be due to the hard disk having a hidden or no default drive letter attribute. This means that the system won’t automatically assign a drive letter to the hard disk, making it impossible to install on Windows 10. To resolve this issue, you can either manually change the drive letter (Method 3) each time you connect the hard disk, or you can remove the hidden attribute of no default drive letter by following these steps (only needs to be done once). This will allow the system to automatically assign a drive letter to your mobile hard disk.
Method 1: Clear hidden attributes
Step 1: Search (cmd) directly in the search box in the lower left corner, and select (run as administrator) to open the command prompt.
run as administrator
Step 2: Enter ( dispart ) command and press the (Enter) key. You need to press the (Enter) key every time you enter a command.
Then enter list disk to list all disks in the computer.
Type select disk 1 (1 is the disk number) to select the target disk.
Enter list volume to list all disk partitions, and it can be seen that volume 2 is in the “hidden” state.
Enter select volume 2 (2 represents the disk partition number) to select the hidden disk partition.
Type attribute volume clear hidden to clear the volume’s hidden attribute.
list disk in diskpart
Method 2: Clear the no default drive letter attribute
Step 1: Type “diskpart” in the taskbar search box, right click on the search result and select (Run as administrator).
diskpart run as administrator
Step 2: Then enter the following commands, and you need to press the (Enter) key every time you enter a command.
Type list disk to list disks.
Enter select disk 2 (2 indicates the disk number) to select the disk.
Type list part to list the partitions.
Enter select partition 4 (4 indicates the partition number) to select the partition.
Type attributes volume to check disk partition attributes. Check the properties of (Hidden) and (No Default Drive Letter), where you can see that the (Hidden) property is (No), and the (No Default Drive Letter) property is (Yes).
Enter attribute volume clear NoDefaultDriveLetter to clear the attribute for (no default drive letter). If the (hidden) attribute is (Yes), you can also enter the (attributes volume clear hidden) command. After that, safely eject the hard disk, reconnect it to the computer, and open the file explorer to check whether the hard disk can be displayed normally.
attribute volume clear NoDefaultDriveLetter