[computer woes] Has anyone on here had any experience with an external hard drive being recognized by a computer but then not seeing/being able to access any files on said drive...?

My brother recently got a new computer (Samsung Galaxy Book 360) and has a Seagate Portable Drive that he was (I guess?) using with his old computer and Geek Squad was supposed to have transferred everything but they didn't.

The new computer recognizes the drive but the only files showing in Windows Explorer or whatever the fuck it's called are three kinda informational files (two "Start Here" and one warranty file).

Windows however is showing that the drive does have 390GB occupied, which is way more than the space those files occupy.

I think maybe the driver on this drive needs to be updated but I sorta wanted to see if anyone had a similar experience in case this actually fucks something up or if there's something else I need to look.

oh nooo! >< maybe a driver on the computer needs updating to recognize the drive, rather than on the drive?

but that's not an informed suggestion-!!

It turns out his old computer was Windows 10 so it may just be a driver issue (both computer and external)... Here's hoping!

No dice so far... Fortunately his old laptop is still technically functional so that's at least a point of intermediary access we can utilize if needed, which is good because so far I still haven't figured out what the fuck could possibly be the problem.

I also fortunately have a spare Toshiba external lying around that seemed to have promise but then I attempted to reset/reformat it and now neither the old laptop, the new laptop, or my iMac will recognize it when plugged in. vv

TBH my current solution is to back the shit up to like Dropbox or something and then maybe re-download it onto the Seagate if he really wants it stored physically.

But I still want to figure out wtf happened with my Toshiba at least and see if I can make use of it here.