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3 August 2023  Jennifer Thatcher  Technology Manager of Test Dept.
 

Summary
Learn how to troubleshoot and fix unrecognized second hard drive issues in Windows 10. Discover common causes and effective solutions in this article.



Table of contents

table iconI. What are the reasons why the Windows 10 computer cannot recognize the new hard disk?
table iconII. What are the methods to solve the problem that the Windows 10 computer cannot recognize the new hard disk?
table iconIII. Use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data
windows 10 not detecting second hard drive

I. What are the reasons why the Windows 10 computer cannot recognize the new hard disk?

The reasons that may cause the Windows 10 computer to fail to recognize the second new hard drive installed generally include the following aspects:
●Connection problem: When the new hard disk is not properly connected to the Windows 10 computer, there may be a failure that the device cannot be recognized.
●The hard disk is not initialized: if the new hard disk is not initialized, the hard disk cannot be recognized normally.
●The hard disk is not partitioned: the hard disk that has not been partitioned will not appear in Windows Explorer because the disk space has not been allocated.
●No drive letter: If the hard disk partition does not have a drive letter, it cannot be found in Windows Explorer.
●Outdated disk driver: When the driver of the new hard disk is not updated in time, your computer cannot detect and recognize the device.
The above are the main reasons why Windows 10 cannot recognize the new hard disk. After understanding, let’s learn how to solve this problem.

II. What are the methods to solve the problem that the Windows 10 computer cannot recognize the new hard disk?

1. Check whether the hard disk connection is normal

When your new hard disk cannot be recognized normally by Windows 10 computer, please check whether the data cable and power cable of the hard disk drive are connected normally. You can unplug the data cable and power cable in the shutdown state and reconnect them; try to connect the hard disk data cable Connect to another SATA interface on the motherboard or replace the hard disk data cable to see if the problem can be solved.
HDD data cable and power cable

2. Initialize the hard disk and create a new partition

As we mentioned above, when the hard disk has not created a partition, the device may not be recognized, so we can initialize it, and then perform partition processing. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Connect the hard disk to the computer, then press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.
Disk Management Options
Step 2: Right-click on the hard drive whose status is “Not Initialized” and select the (Initialize Disk) option.
Step 3: Select the partition style MBR or GPT and click (OK). Choose GPT if your hard drive is 2TB or larger. Select MBR if the MBR is less than 2TB. also mayclick here Check out the detailed introduction of MBR and GPT.
Step 4: After the hard disk is initialized, the status of the device will change to “Online”. Right-click on the unallocated space, select (New Simple Volume), and proceed to the next step.
Step 5: In the New Simple Volume Wizard, set the partition size and click (Next).
Step 6: Next, select the drive letter for the partition of the hard disk, and click (Next).
Step 7: Select the file system as NTFS, select the default value in “Allocation Unit Size”, and set the partition name in “Volume Label”. Then select the (Perform a quick format) option and click (Next). Finally, click (Finish) and that’s it.click here You can view the introduction of the NTFS file system.

3. Check for driver updates

Out of date drivers may be preventing your Windows 10 PC from recognizing your device. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth operation and use of the system and equipment, it is best to upgrade the hard disk driver to the latest version. Let’s learn how to update the driver on Windows 10, the specific steps are as follows.
Step 1: Run the Windows 10 computer, connect the hard disk to the computer, and then press the (Windows+R) keys on the keyboard at the same time to open the running window. After entering the command (devmgmt.msc), click the (OK) button to enter the Device Manager.
Enter the device manager command
Step 2: Next, in “Disk Drives”, right-click on the new hard drive and select the (Update Driver) option.
Select the update drive option
Step 3: Select the (Automatically search for updated driver software) option, and then follow the instructions in order to complete the update of the hard disk driver. After the driver update is complete, restart the computer to see if the problem is resolved.
Select the Automatically search for updated driver software option
The above are some solutions to the problem that the computer cannot recognize the new hard disk. If some important data saved on your hard disk is lost, you can check the following methods to scan and restore it.

III. Use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter It 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. Therefore, it can help you solve all possible data loss problems that may occur during system use in an all-round way, which is very convenient.
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2. How to use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data?

As a professional data recovery software, Renee Undeleter not only has comprehensive functions, but also is very simple to operate. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Download, install and run Renee Undeleter, select the (Partition Recovery) option on the main interface.
Note: Do not install on the disk that needs to restore data, so as not to cause data overwriting.
Select partition recovery option
Data recovery function introduction:
File Recovery – Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Formatted Recovery – Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Partition Recovery – Analyze and get partition information and perform a full scan of the entire partition.
Create Mirror – You can create a mirror image for a partition to back up the current partition state.

Step 2: Next, select the new hard disk device to scan, and click (Next). Select (default setting) on the advanced setting interface.
Select target device for partition recovery
Step 3: After that, the software will analyze the new hard disk device. After the analysis, a prompt window of “select the partition you need to scan” may pop up. You can select the corresponding partition according to your needs. If you don’t select it, all partitions will be scanned. It will take longer. After scanning, you can preview the files in the preview window on the right, then select the files you need to restore, and click the (Recover) button in the lower right corner to restore the selected files.
Partition recovery scan result presentation
Step 4: Next, select the target folder, click (Browse) to select another disk to save the recovered files, and then click the (Recover) button to start the file recovery command, you just need to wait patiently.
Partition recovery data recovery interface