Windows 10: My Laptop doesn’t recognize my external hard drive

When i used my external hard drive a few days ago, it worked fine. But yesterday my laptop refused to recognize it i tried disk managment, device manager, etc i tested the drive on another device and it worked, and i tested my ports and they worked just fine. It seems the hard drive powers on when i connect it to my laptop, the laptop doesnt detect it. I did solve it temporarily when i updated the firmware in device manager, but then i left it for a few minutes and it went back to not recognizing it. Help?

it doesnt appear in disk management

:)

 

I can't access my external hard drive with Windows 10....

The computer doesn`t recognize the external hard drive. Help!

 

external hard drive not recognized

Hello zbook
#1) I have tested the external drives in three different computers, win10 pro, Win10, and XP. The results are identical. When I plug in the external hard drive windows signals a new device with an audio signal and the light comes on on the external drive. The results on all three pc's is identical in disk manager, file explorer and device manager.
#2) I have tried all solutions presented to me by FreeBooter, from the simplest solution of uninstalling the external drive in device manager and rebooting windows, to using the various third party software that was suggested, obviously with out success.
#3) The attached screen shots will only show one of the drives attached because I don't have enough free USB ports to attach two drives and I didn't think it would have been a good idea to use a hub.
#4) one strange thing about one of the drives is that now device manager lists it as a Toshiba drive although it is a Western Digital.
#5) Sorry but I have no way of getting a photo of BIOS










I look forward to reading your comments

 

External Hard Drive Not Recognized by Windows 10

Hi Thomas,

Sometimes, PCs fail to recognize the External Hard Drive even after confirming a successful connection. This is usually due to a corrupted or outdated device driver. However, for us to isolate the issue, we need additional information. Kindly answer the
questions below:

• Have you tired to plug your external hard drive to another port or to another device to make sure that it is working properly?
• Are you getting any error messages when you plug in your external hard drive?

In the meantime, we suggest that you run the Hardware and Device Troubleshooter. This automated tool will check the hardware/USB connected to your PC for any known issue and resolve it automatically. Refer to this link to access the troubleshooter:
Find and fix problems with devices and hardware.

Update us on how it goes.