WD External Hard drive not recognized

The solution for me was something completely different.

One of the files in a hidden folder on the external drive (in "system volume information") was a 0 byte file with no file extension called "mountpointmanagerremotedatabase." I couldn't delete it from a Windows based machine. I was able to delete the file when the external HDD was plugged in to a Linux based machine.

Before I plugged the drive back in to my HP Pavilion g-1700 CTO laptop, I went in to "Device Manager," clicked "show hidden devices," and uninstalled all the greyed out items from TWO places - the USB Controllers (of course), AND the "Disk drives."

It worked - Windows successfully installed the drivers when I plugged the WD My Book 1230 4TB external HDD in, and it shows up in Device Manager.

Just wanted to share - I know this might help someone else so I wanted to get it out there.

Ok, so I was too hopeful too soon.

I was initially able to get each of the 2 4TB externals to be recognized, but it only did it once.

The laptop now only recognizes one of the 2 4TB hard drives. It won't initiate the install for the 2nd one now, at all. I've gone through "CMD" and removed the system volume information folder. I've verified that "remotepoint (whatever the hell that file name is - the 0 byte file with no file extension)" file is gone. I did this on my tower instead of on the laptop - both are running Windows 7 and both have all the updates. The tower seems to have no problems recognizing both drives.

I'm back to square one now...well...almost. At least one of them is continually recognized now.

Any suggestions? I know that a LOT of people have issues when they have 2 of the exact same external drives, but they were both working fine up until a couple weeks ago. I've checked both drives for odd files/folders, and neither have any (now that I've removed that 0 byte file).