Windows 7: Windows 7 does not recognize my external HDD

When I plug in my external HDD I hear the USB noise, but it does not show up under My Computer. It does however show up and it allows me to safely remove the device, though it doesn't have the original device's name (FlexDrive). So instead of "Eject Flexdrive" it says "Eject External".

I've been having this problem with this HDD for a while now, but I would just eject it and plug it back in and it would recognize. This time it was a different story, it is not recognizing, even though it lights up and the disk starts to spin.

This is what disc management shows as well (also showing what I meant when trying to eject):


EDIT: lol, for example right now. I just ejected it and plugged it in again and autoplay came up... =/



EDIT2: And now that I have it working, this is what it looks like:


EDIT3: And this is what disc management looks like when it is working:

Glad to see you found your own solution and saw the drive initialized! GamerKingFaiz Welcome to the Seven Forums!

If you are now looking for seeing a drive letter remain longer even after unplugging and replugging the drive in you can reformat the factory Fat 32 if nothing is on it presently to switch that over to NTFS and assign the drive letter you prefer in the Disk Management tool.

Um, the problem isn't fixed, I was just showing how my HDD randomly starts working after a few couple of ejects and plug back ins.

I was hoping there was some sort of fix, because today especially, it took way too many ejects/plug back ins, and I thought it was totally fried.

Just out of curiosity...

Have you tried updating or reinstalling your chipset drivers?

Are you running x86 or x64 Windows 7?

How would I go about doing that?

And

x86 Windows 7

Here's a link to the download page
 INF Update Utility - Primarily for Intel® 5, 4, 3, 900 Series Chipsets

Install the chipset drivers. You will need to reboot to finish the installation.

Let us know if this clears up your issue.

Are you sure I should download and install that, on the webpage it has this warning:

The Intel Chipset Device Software does not install drivers for AGP or USB. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS UTILITY IF YOUR DEVICE MANUFACTURER IS RECOMMENDING IT TO CORRECT AN "AGP DRIVER," "AGP GART," OR "USB DRIVER" ISSUE; IT WILL NOT CORRECT YOUR ISSUE.

The main problem is typical for Windows when the factory Fat 32 volumes are left one rather then first nuking it off the drive entirely and seeing a fresh NTFS partition go on. If you can get the drive working long enough to back everything up from it a good reformat should be a big help for you as long as the drive itself is working normally and not seeing any defect or bad sectors.

It won't hurt updating the chipset drivers if any were corrupted or now missing as suggested by electrotune1200 simply seeing an updated driver set go on. With a laptop you are using integrated graphics not a separate AGP card there.

It's up to you really. If you feel uneasy installing the chipset drivers then I understand.

If your specs are listed correctly, installing the chipset drivers won't harm your machine.

Do you have any alternative usb inputs to try the external HDD in? Is this only happening in one particular slot, or is it happening in all of them?

The specs are listed directly from a DxDiag, and yes I've tried different slots on my lappy to no avail.