 Hello everybody! In today's video, I'll tell you what to do if an external hard disk or USB drive connected to your computer doesn't show up in the Windows Explorer, but other devices such as printers, scanners or mice are detected properly. I'll show you how to enable and configure USB ports if they are disabled or not working. Hello friends! If you need to recover deleted data, view or restore removed browser history. Hetman software products will help you. Follow the link in the description. Download the necessary program for free. Install it and analyze the disk. The utility will show you the data you can recover, so you will be able to view it or get it back. In our channel and blog, you will find solutions to any problem, from installing an operating system or configuring it, to fixing possible bugs and errors or optimizing mobile gadgets. Our specialists will answer any questions you ask in your comments, under the videos or articles. In the first case, a computer with a probably installed operating system works fine, but if you plug in any external storage device, a pen drive, hard disk or a memory card, they are not shown in the Windows Explorer. At the same time, this computer can recognize the printer, mouse and keyboard, which are also plugged into its USB ports. The first step should be checking the USB ports for a parability, but as long as the computer can work properly with other USB devices, it doesn't make sense. There must be a kind of software problem, a service which is disabled or a certain setting, which has been modified. The other scenario is when any USB device you plug into the USB port doesn't work at all. Most likely, there is a problem with the USB port – it can be disabled or they may be a driver issue, etc. In a few minutes, we will explore how to fix the problem in each of the cases. Let's explore the case with USB ports which are not working. The first step is to check the USB port for possible physical damage. Just plug a device into the port and check if it fits tight. If the port is damaged, try another one. Before doing anything more serious, restart the computer. If nothing changes, you can move on with more complicated methods. Open the Device Manager, right-click on the Start menu and choose Device Manager. In the Manager, look for universal serial bus controllers. When they align, USB host controller. If it's absent, this could be the root of the problem. Click here to scan for hardware changes. The computer will check all the equipment connected to it and update its configuration. Now, host controller may appear on the list. If it doesn't happen, try the following – remove all controllers. Remember, when you work on a computer using a mouse and a keyboard connected via USB ports, they will stop working as soon as you remove the controllers. But there's nothing to worry about – they will work fine again as soon as you restart the computer. So, right-click on the controller and install Device. After that, restart the computer. If the mouse and the keyboard stop working at this stage, you can restart the PC by pressing the corresponding button on the system unit. USB Selective Suspense Setting is a power saving option in the Windows operating system which suspends supply of power to a USB device in order to extend the period of the computer's work on battery. To turn it off, go to Settings, System, Power & Sleep, Related Settings, Additional Power Settings. In the Power Options window that opens, hit the link Change Plan Settings. In the new window, click on Change Advanced Power Settings. Click for the setting Disable USB Selective Suspense. Set Disable for these two values. Click Apply. OK. Now the operating system will not disable its USB ports temporarily to save power. Also, you can disable this setting with the Windows registry. Press the key shortcut Windows plus R and type Reguided in the Run window. Control-based mouse, HKE Lock-on Machine, System, Current Control Set, Services, USB. If there is no USB folder there, create it. Right-click on the Services folder, New, Key, USB. In the USB key, create a DWORD32 value with the following names. Disable Selective Suspense. And assign the value data one. OK. Now the USB Selective Suspense setting is disabled for your computer. For the changes to take effect, the computer needs to be restunted. If the port still doesn't work, it must be a hardware problem. USB ports are quite easy to break, and USB flash drives may act as a lever of pressure to destroy electrical contacts inside the ports. Quite often it happens to laptops when users put them into their bags, but forget to remove a USB drive sticking out from the side of their portable computer. Still, this is a simple mechanical defect that can be eliminated. Most likely you will have to contact a PC repair specialist. If the USB ports are in good condition, but a USB drive is not showing up in the Windows Explorer when you plug the drive into the port, that problem might be caused by certain system services or wrong system settings. To find out, open Disk Management. Right-click on the Start menu and select Line Disk Management. Now check if the drive is showing up here. If the USB port and the drive are fine, Disk Drive will be listed as available in the Disk Management window. Just right-click on it and assign the drive letter manually. After that, the drive will appear in Disk PC folder. The problem with the drive letter not assigned automatically often happens when the virtual disk service is not running. To exclude this possibility, check the service. Type services in the search field and find this service on the list. Right-click on it and select Properties. Set the startup type to Automatic and start the service. After that, restart the computer and check if the drives work properly. If this method doesn't help, you may have the AutoMount function disabled, somehow. By default, this function is enabled. In some cases, though, it can be turned off. For example, antivirus tools and utilities working with disk images may do it. You can learn the status of this service with the help of the command prompt. Run it as administrator and type the command Disk port. Then press Enter. Then type another command, AutoMount. Perform it and, as a result, you will see if this function is enabled. If it is off, type the command AutoMount enable and press Enter. The corresponding notification will appear to inform you that AutoMount is now active. Restart the computer and try to plug an external storage device or a pen drive to the USB port. If everything is well, it must show up in the Windows Explorer at last. And that is all for now. Hopefully, this video was useful. Remember to click the Like button and subscribe to our channel. Hit the bell button to receive notifications and never miss new videos. Leave comments to ask questions. Thank you for watching. Good luck.