When you have placed a new Hard Drive into your HDD enclosure, it is normal that the Hard Drive is not yet recognized in Windows explorer. Windows works with logical volumes, which have to be created. The Drive has to be partitioned and formatted.
When you have installed a Hard Drive that came from another system, like a DVR; media player; NAS; Mac Os; Gameconsole etc., it is possible that the Drives will not be recognised in Windows. This is because it is formatted in a way (different File System), which Windows does not support. When you need to use these Hard Drives, you have to re-format the Drives into the Windows NTFS File System. When this is not possible from within the Windows "Disk Manager" (for whatever reason), you could try 3rd party software like, Gparted and MiniTool Partition Wizard etc.
Please note! When you use an existing Hard Drive from another system and you repartition and format the Drive, all data will be lost that is present, on that partition.
Please create a backup first, on the system where the Hard Drive was originally used on. After this you can remove the disk and place it in the housing. We are not liable for any data loss.
Follow the steps below, on how to make an unknown partition available in Windows 10/11.
1. Click with the right mouse button on the Windows START menu and click on "Disk Management" with the left mouse button. Underneath a depiction of "Disk Management".
2. By default you will see that the new Hard Drive has the status ‘’Offline”. Please click with the right mouse button on "Offline" and select "Online". You will see that the Drive is "Unallocated".
3. Now, click with the right mouse button on the "Unallocated" space and choose "New Simple Volume" click on "Next".
4. The following screen will appear:
Windows will determine the maximum capacity of the volume. You could divide the volume into multiple parts, then you have to adjust the size of the volume. Click on "Next" to continue.
5. You can choose a drive letter to add and click on "Next" to continue.
6. Now the hard disk has to be formatted. It is recommended to choose the NTFS File system.
Fill in the "Volume label" field, to which you prefer and click on "Next" to continue.
7. When done formatting, you'll see a summary screen; click on "Next" to continue.
The drive will now be available in the Windows explorer.