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Resolved External drives not recognized

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by Bearclaw, 2017/12/17.

  1. 2017/12/17
    Bearclaw

    Bearclaw Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    HP 6000 laptop
    Windows 7 Home Premium

    My laptop no longer recognizes my external hard drive. I have run the Windows Hardware Troubleshooter to no avail, not to surprising as the External drives are not 'seen' in the first place. Tried using the Windows updates to get any new drivers and again not successful. I attached a couple of external devices to the same ports and they all get 'seen' and are completely funtional.

    The only advice I have found on the web is to run the troubleshooter program.

    Does anyone have any ideas on how to deal with this? Thanks for any assistance or thougnts you have...
     
    Bearclaw,
    #1
  2. 2017/12/17
    rsinfo

    rsinfo SuperGeek Alumni

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    Is your drive ok ? Is it recognised by any other computer successfully ?
     
    rsinfo,
    #2


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  4. 2017/12/17
    Bearclaw

    Bearclaw Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    The drives are OK, three that I have tried all with the same result with the laptop. My android tablet does 'see' them. Thanx for the response.
     
    Bearclaw,
    #3
  5. 2017/12/18
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    If the drive is seen on another computer then there is unlikely to be a problem with the drive. May be an issue with the USB port - have you tried all available on the laptop?

    Try deleting all the USB controllers and root hubs and reboot the laptop - Windows will reinstall the appropriate drivers.
     
    PeteC,
    #4
  6. 2017/12/18
    Bearclaw

    Bearclaw Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thanks PeteC, I was pretty sure the drives were not the problem. Now to the matter you mention: Deleting the USB controllers and root hubs... sorry for my ignorance but how would I do that? I would appreciate some instruction on these steps. All assistance would be greatly appreciated!
     
    Bearclaw,
    #5
  7. 2017/12/18
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    No problem :)

    Control Panel > Device Manager > scroll down to Universal Serial Bus Controllers and expand the section by clicking on the arrow head adjacent to the title.

    You should see a number of USB controllers and USB Root Hubs. Right click on each entry in turn > Uninstall, then reboot the computer.

    If you are using a USB mouse you will probably lose use of it, but the scroll pad should remain operative. If needs be force a shut down by holding down the power button on the laptop. On reboot Windows will install the drivers for the the USB controller(s) and Root Hubs. Test the drive.

    BTW - from my last post ....
    Have you tried this?
     
    PeteC,
    #6
  8. 2017/12/18
    Bearclaw

    Bearclaw Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thank you again Pete, I followed your instructions, with some trepidation s I was definitely doing something new to me. All went well, took a bit of time for all the updated drivers to be found and installed but that is to be expected. Don't know for certain but the laptop seems to be much more responsive since the 'refresh' of its drivers. OK, this was not a solution for the external drives not being recognized. However, having done this it really pointed to the actual problem which is a new USB hub I recently an older one with as it was getting unreliable, dropping connections and coming back on. The new hub has been in use for about two weeks with no problems at all with the external drives. I was believing that since every other item attached to the same new hub was working perfectly that the hub was not the source of failure.

    I still don't understand why this hub will not work with the various external drives. I can only guess that the hub does not provide adequate juice or something even though the drives do 'spin up' and seem to be running fine. Who knows, guess there is a gremlin in there somewhere. If you have any thoughts on this would be welcomed!

    Sorry for the length of this response, but it might be found useful for others to have some specifics.

    Thanks again PeteC and rsinfo, folks like you make this site the best out there!
     
    Bearclaw,
    #7
  9. 2017/12/19
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    It would have been helpful if you had mentioned that you were connecting via a hub :)

    There are a couple of scenarios here ....

    1. If the external drive has an independent power supply then an unpowered hub should work OK, however ....

    2 If the hub is not powered independently of the computer and the drive is also not powered independently then the drive is unlikely to function correctly due to lack of power - as you rightly surmised, although it may spin up. All my external 2.5" drives and my external DVD drive have 2 USB connectors to provide sufficient power for operation. i.e. power is being drawn from both USB ports. There is a limit on how much power a single USB port can provide - 500 milliamps..
     
    PeteC,
    #8
  10. 2017/12/23
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    retiredlearner,
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