The external hard drive is not working, but it keeps blinking? Well, users face this issue sometimes. But you don’t have to worry about it. It is possible to fix this issue. Here are a few fixes that you can try out to resolve the problem and make external hard drive work again.
Fix 1: Unhide Hidden Devices
- Go to Start and type msc, and hit Enter
- In the Device Manager window, choose View and then click on Show hidden devices
- Click on the + sign to expand all notes
- Right click on greyed entries and choose Uninstall
- Now reboot the system, and see if the external hard drive works
Fix 2: Uninstall Driver
If method 1 doesn’t work, then try this out.
- Go to Start and type msc, and hit Enter
- In the Device Manager window, expand Universal Serial Bus controllers
- Right-click on each USB device and click on Uninstall
- Verify if an unrecognized device is present or not
- If there is, then, click on Drivers tab and Uninstall the drivers
- Now check on This PC to see if the external hard drive gets detected
If the external hard drive still does not show up, then restart your PC. In case it appears initially but later disappears, then repeat the step above, and go to Disk Management - Change Drive Letter -- Reconnect it.
Fix 3: Modify Registry
If method 2 is also not working out, then you can try this method. It is a good approach to fix the issue.
- Go to Start and type regedt32; click OK
- Backup Registry
- Click Export
- On the left side, click OK
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
- Now delete upper filter or lower filter
- Finally, check if the external hard drive is working
Hopefully, these methods come handy to fix the external hard drive that is blinking but not working. Suppose the external hard drive got fixed but data present in it cannot be accessed, then what to do? Don’t worry, with the help of External Hard Drive Recovery software, you can restore files that are lost or inaccessible on the external drive. This tool will not only recover data missing from external hard disk, but it also retrieves data erased or deleted from the drive. Even files from deleted, lost, corrupted, or RAW partitions can be restored with the help of this software.
