Windows 10: Windows 10 does not recognize external hard drives or flash drives

When I start up my computer it will recognize an external hard drive if it is already plugged into a usb or is immediately plugged in following login. If I disconnect the external hard drive to switch to a different one then the new hard drive will not be recognized and will not be shown. This problem also extends to flash drives. Any external hard drives that I have attached do not show in the Disk Manager. When I open the drive in Device Manager I get the following message:"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still i

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Flash drives recognized but external hard drives are not

My Windows 10 Home laptop will recognize all of my flash drives but won't recognize any of my external hard drives. They all use to show up but now they aren't. The hard drives show up in disk manager but won't show up in file explorer. I hooked them up to other laptops & they all show up. I've tried uninstalling drivers & reinstalling them but It hasn't worked. Any ideas?

 

Toshiba external hard drive not recognized

Hi Philip,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I understand that the external hard drive is not recognized by the PC. I appreciate your efforts in trying to resolve the issue.
It would be great if you can answer these questions to assist you in a better way.

• Did you try connecting the Hardrive to different USB Port?
  
• Does the Hardrive get detected if you try connecting it to a different PC?
  
• Are you aware of any changes made to the computer recently?
  

I suggest you refer and follow the steps mentioned in the KB article and check if that resolves the issueError:
“USB Device not recognized” when you try to access a USB external hard drive

Note: Ignore method 2 & 5 from the above article.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Zaki

 

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