Windows 10: USB external hard drive not working on new laptop

So I have a Toshiba external hard drive that I use just to back up some pictures, documents, etc. I've always used this with my laptop without issue. I recently got a new Dell laptop running windows 10 and every time I plug the hard drive in it just says that the USB device is not recognized.


I have tried going to the device manager and uninstalling the specific device, unplugging it, waiting a few minutes and plugging it in and this has allowed me to connect to it and see all my files and everything once or twice but 99% of the time it just gives me the USB device not recognized message. I have tried to update the driver through the device manager and clicked both to search online and to check windows update but both ways just tell me that the drivers are up to date or that I have the correct driver for this.


I know nothing has happened to the external hard drive or anything because if I take it and plug it into the older laptop that I used to use it works completely like normal.


Any help on how I can get this to work on my newer laptop please??

:)

 

External hard drive not recognised

Thanks for this. I've done what you suggested and been through all the steps mentioned in the article. The hard drive works fine on a Mac computer, and I've managed to copy the information on it. It must be a Surface issue so I'll try to get a chat line tomorrow.

 

USB external hard drive not working on new laptop

So I have a Toshiba external hard drive that I use just to back up some pictures, documents, etc. I've always used this with my laptop without issue. I recently got a new Dell laptop running windows 10 and every time I plug the hard drive in it just says
that the USB device is not recognized.

I have tried going to the device manager and uninstalling the specific device, unplugging it, waiting a few minutes and plugging it in and this has allowed me to connect to it and see all my files and everything once or twice but 99% of the time it just
gives me the USB device not recognized message. I have tried to update the driver through the device manager and clicked both to search online and to check windows update but both ways just tell me that the drivers are up to date or that I have the correct
driver for this.

I know nothing has happened to the external hard drive or anything because if I take it and plug it into the older laptop that I used to use it works completely like normal.

Any help on how I can get this to work on my newer laptop please??

 

Can not back up to new external hard drive

• Thank you for the reply. I have two USB ports on my laptop and have tried using them both. According to my device manager, both ports along with the external hard drive are working properly.
• I did try the troubleshooter several times and no issues were detected.
• Although I have not had any issues with the internal hard drive on my laptop, I did try performing a check disk via the chkdsk command you suggested, then restarted my computer. Once the computer checked the internal hard disk and started, I tried to access
  the file history on my control panel again with the external hard drive plugged into the usb port and it still shows no usable drives were found.
  
• I have also unchecked the box labeled "hide empty drives" under the file explorer and that doesn't work either.