Western Digital Ext. HArd drive wont show up.

[juaxoo]

I have to western Digital external hard drives and when I plug them both in to my computer at the same time, only one of them shows up in "My Computer". I have to keep plugging them in one after another to get the other to pop up. I have to transfer data from one drive t o the other but I can't do so because they won't appear at the same time.

When I go to Device Manger they both appear there but only the first drive that was plugged in is accessible.

Any one have any answers?

 

[MadHacker]

if they're external drives without a separate power source, you may not be getting enough power from the USB ports to run both simultaneously

 

[juaxoo]

They both run on their own power cable to the wall outlet

 

[MadHacker]

Not sure what kind of computer you're using, but if it's a desktop with front and rear USB ports, try connecting one to the front and the other to the back, anything but adjacent ports.

 

[juaxoo]

I actually have a HP g60-445dx laptop with 3 USB ports. I've tried swapping out which ports I use to see if they'll pop up but it still isn't working.

 

[MadHacker]

Try a different computer. The USB hub in your laptop isn't up to the task.

 

[whs]

It is probably a capacity problem of your hub. I would copy the data first from one to the system disk and then swap the drives and copy to the other external. That may not be a lot slower because you avoid interference on the hub. And enable write caching in Device Manager > Properties > Policies.

 

[essenbe]

Also, make sure they are both assigned separate drive letters.

 

[juaxoo]

Also, make sure they are both assigned separate drive letters.

I don't know why I didn't think of that before. How do you change the drive letter?

 

[juaxoo]

Nevermind I figured out how to do that but that still didn't work

 

[juaxoo]

Okay I messed around with my computer a little bit and I actually figured out the problem. It wasn't because the drive letters were differnet, it was because one of the drive were "offline" when the other was "online". All I had to do was switch them to both online at the same time. I appreciate all the help anyways guys.

 

[thehappyman]

Just a wild guess..... I thought that Windows would just assign the next available drive letter to each one as you plug them in and they get "recognized". Try not plugging in the second one until after the first has been recognized and assigned a drive letter.

**** Juaxoo - Didnt see the post where you fixed problem till after I posted this. Glad problem is fixed.