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External drive won’t mount on Windows 10 [Solved]

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Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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External hard drives (SSDs included) are of great use for various reasons. Having your data with you at all times is normal these days, especially on storage that is easily accessible and has a lot of storage space.

However, Windows 10, the system which should be a top-notch service, has a lot of issues withexternal drives.

Besides these minor problems, the users had the worst time with mounting, ejecting, or booting from the external drive.

Because of that, we made sure to provide the appropriate solutions for these issues. If you have been looking for a solution that should fixmount/eject/boot errors, look no further than below.

How can I fix external drive issues in Windows 10?

1. External drive won’t mount in Windows 10

Mounting an external drive should be quite simple. Plug-and-play is there for ages and the system should have an easy time reading any USB-plugged external drive.

However, seemingly, some users experienced a variety of issues which, eventually, lead to the same conclusion. The systemcan’t recognize the external hard drivewhatever they do.

Now, before we outline the possible solutions for this problem, we need you to try andmountyour drive on an alternative PC. That way we’ll eliminate possible hardware issues.

Hardware issues are quite common when it comes to hard drives and USB ports. If you’re sure that the external hard drive works on other machines but it just won’t mount on that one Windows 10 PC, you could:

2. Mounted external drive won’t eject in Windows 10

Now, this is rather peculiar. Problems with mounting a certain drive are one thing, and the reasons spectrum is broader.

On the other hand, the issues one can experience with the inability to eject certain external hard drives are mostly provoked by thebackground processes.

Namely, some background process associated with themounteddrive prevents it from ejecting. Of course, you can unplug it/shut it down without the Safely remove feature.

That can, consequently, lead to more complex errors and further issues. What you’ll need to do is to follow the solutions we enlisted below and look for improvements.

Hopefully, you should be able to eject themounteddrive safely, without any risks of data corruption.

3. External drive won’t boot on Windows 10

Finally, one of the advantages of portable data drives is that you can create a bootable system drive and carry your system around.

However, some user reports outlined the boot issues concerning the external drive. They were unable to boot to Windows 10 from the external drive, even though this worked great on the previous Windows iterations.

When you look at it, it’s quite obvious that the BIOS (UEFI) is the one to blame. However, it doesn’t mean that the BIOS is the only culprit. We enlisted all known troubleshooting steps below:

That’s a wrap-up. In case you’re aware of any alternative solutions, feel free to share them with us in the comments section below.

Traditional hard disks are long gone, so don’t hesitate to discover thebest Western Digital external HDDto get these days.

Also, bookmark thisPeripherals Troubleshooting Hubto help you solve any problem with ease.

More about the topics:external hard drive

Aleksandar Ognjanovic

Aleksandar’s main passion is technology. With a solid writing background, he is determined to bring the bleeding edge to the common user. With a keen eye, he always spots the next big thing surrounding Microsoft and the Windows OS.

Focused on Windows errors and how to solve them, he also writes about the OS’s latest features as well as its interface.

In his free time, he likes to read, listen to music, and enjoy the nature. Hiking is one of his newly found passions.

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