Windows 10: Windows 10 can't find external USB 3.0 drives...

was experiencing similar problem, but found usb 2.0 ports recognized my passport using windows 10i. hopefully fast boot route fixes my issue as well.

 

So...I lurked my way through tenforums.com during my Win10 upgrade, and thanks to everyone for some really amazing information! This was the last issue I had.

I lost my USB 3.0 capability after the Win10 upgrade. I disabled fast bootup as instructed in this thread and my USB 3.0 ability came back. The Win10 bootup sequence took forever though, so after verifying all my USB 3.0 drives worked, I switched fast boot back on for sh*ts and giggles. My USB 3.0 drives still work. I am at a loss as to why. In essence all I did was shut fast boot off, run and power cycle the laptop once, switch fast boot back on, and I am good. If it acts up again I will let everyone know. Could the boot up sequence changed slightly, allowing the USB 3.0 ability to continue to work?

Thanks again everyone,

Rick

 

I had the same problem trying to attach a Seagate drive to my ASUS q302LA. When I disabled the legacy support for usb in BIOS it enabled the USB 3 capabilities of the drive. Now that I have a HP Starwars, the Seagate is only recognized by the USB 2 port, there is no similar switch in the HP's BIOS and all the Device Manager drivers are up to date, did each freakin one. If anyone knows how to solve this problem, chime in.

 

Hi there.

Sometimes the fix is as easy as this.

1) Power off COMPLETELY the machine (including removing the power plug - i.e don't just shut down and leave power connected).
2) Unplug ANYTHING you don't need for boot - all external drives etc. Obviously leave Monitor / keyboard / mouse connected.
3) Boot up
4) after boot completed plug in USB 3 drives
5) If they don't show this will often work :
a) get into control panel (right mouse click on the start button).
b) choose Administrative tools--->computer management--Disk management(when the snapin appears).
c) scroll down the list of HDD's -- you might see your external HDD but with no Disk drive letter assigned
d) choose the disk with no letter and right click on it -- then choose change drive letter and path -- note click in the Disk space not on the title panel which says for example Disk 1 basic 3706.02GB NTFS (your HDD's will probably have a different size).
e) use the drop down to assign a letter
f) Windows should now recognize the device.

Cheers
jimbo

 

I had this same problem, but solved it thanks to help from this forum. Here's my post from last August describing the issue:

Been working on this a little more...no solution yet, but more info: I was running 7 on my Lenovo Y580, and upgraded to 10 on 8/31. When I boot up in the morning, my Seagate Backup Plus USB 3 external desktop drive is not recognized. In the device manager I see the yellow triangle and get the "device descriptor request failed" error msg. When I open Properties it says the device is working properly, but it doesn't show in File Explorer, my daily backup to it won't work (I'm using the Windows Backup), and the power light stays off. Tried updating the driver, but it says my driver is up to date (date on driver is 8-17-2015, version 10.0.10240.16461). Interestingly, if I unplug the USB cable I hear the tone telling me I've unplugged, and then when I plug it back in the power light comes on, windows recognizes it, the device manager name changes to "Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller 1.0 (Microsoft)", and all proceeds as normal. This does not happen on a warm boot (restart) or when I wake the computer from sleep. Only when I power it up in the morning. I suppose I could live with unplugging and replugging every morning, but it would nice to have it working correctly. Any ideas?

And here's the suggestion I got that fixed it:

Windows is possibly booting too quickly, meaning that the external devices are not detected before the cold boot has completed

Please disable fast boot in Windows power options. Then shutdown and do a cold boot.


Disabling fast boot fixed it immediately for me.

 

You really helped me out with this problem, thank you so much

 

Just follow up.. Bought new cord on Amazon and USB 3 worked however, the drive seems to be failing so that might ultimately be the issue. At least was able to get stuff off.

 

That didn't work. I've been using the usb 2 port, so all is not lost. But what's the point of having a fast usb 3 if it's defective. And I say defective because something this simple should be plug-and-play, this 2016 not 1984. I wrote disk drivers for DOS faster than MS can figure how to get their stuff working right. That it's being "solved" on a forum rather than by the company that wrote this shit tells you all you need to know.

 

And it isn't up to Microsoft to write drivers for the billions of specific pieces of hardware out there let alone all the combinations that result from mixing that hardware. It is up to the manufacturer of the hardware to write drivers for it. - But it's just easier to complain about Microsoft and blame them for everything.

 

This is a seagate drive, not some off-brand stuff, it should plug and play.

 

Then blame Seagate for it.

 

I don't want to "blame" anyone, I just want the crap to work as advertised. By the way, when is MS gonna fix the audio driver for Skype, that's been going on for about a year now.

 

Hate to tell you this but if you've done any research on Seagate drives, they been having problems for years. Their not known to be very reliable for any length of time anyhow. In the future buy a better brand, WD Black is very good drive....for a spinner. *Smile

 

Works fine for lots of others .....mine works fine on 3 different computers. *Smile

 

Exactly, the drive worked on the usb 3 port on my ASUS q302, once I flipped a BIOS switch to disable legacy support. There's no similar switch on my HP Starwars BIOS and no one seems to know how to resolve the issue. These forums are nice and all, but I miss the day when you could look at a reference manual and get an answer. MS used to write such manuals, back in the day, now they, and everyone else to be fair, just throws a product out and lets the "forums" solve the problems. Not a good business model.