Windows 10: Why does my Windows 11 computer keep losing and re-discovering my USB hard drive?

I've tried all the fixes recommended. MS needs to fix W11. Never had this issue with W10. My previous desktop was W10 Pro, i7 w 16 gb ram. My new desktop is W11 Pro, i7, 16 gb ram. Identical set up. Keeps dropping and finding the USB external HD. Happens at least a couple times an hour. A very annoying bug in W11.

:)

 

Hard Drive not Showing

Hi Lori,

Thank you for posting back.

• How are you connecting the Hard drive to your computer?
• Have you tried connecting the hard drive to a different computer and check if it works?

It's possible that your USB drivers are corrupt. I suggest you to try the following steps and check.

• Press Windows Key +R and type
  devmgmt.msc to open Device manager.
• Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers
  at the left bottom.
• Right-click the first USB controller under Universal Serial Bus controllers, and then click on
  Uninstall to remove it.
• Repeat these steps for the entire USB controller under Universal Serial Bus controllers.
• Restart the computer. After the computer starts, Windows will automatically scan for hardware changes and reinstall all the USB controllers that you uninstalled.

Keep us posted with the status of the issue to assist you further.

Thank you.

 

exterior hard drive usable?

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I suggest you to follow the below steps and check if it helps.

• Plug USB hard drive into old computer.
• Open File Explorer (Win+E) and open the USB drive.
• Open another File Explorer window and open your documents folder.
• Drag files to the USB drive.
• Move drive to new computer.
• Drag files to their new homes in the matching documents/pictures/videos/whatever folders you use to organize.

Please let us know if you have any further issues. in uploading/ transferring data.

Thanks.

 

USB Hard drive in dock

Hi Rich,

The error "Device was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match" happens if Windows detects an incompatible driver for your device. We'd like to learn more about your concern so that we could provide the proper resolution. We just have
a few questions for you:

• Which build version of Windows 10 is on your computer? To check, click
  Start, type winver, and press Enter. For example, 14393.1066.
  
• Did you make any changes to your computer before this happened, or is this the first time you connected this hard drive to your computer?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

As an initial recommendation, we suggest rolling back or updating the driver for your hard drive by following these steps:

• Right-click the Start button.
• Click Device Manager.
• Find your hard drive under Disk drives.
• Double-click your hard drive to open the Properties window.
• Go to the Driver tab.
• Click Roll back driver if it's available.
• Click OK.
• If rolling back the driver isn't an option, download the newest driver from the hard drive's manufacturer's website and install it.
• If the issue still persists, click Uninstall.
• Click OK.
• Restart your computer so that Windows can automatically reinstall the hard drive driver.

We'll wait for your response and the results of the initial troubleshooting.