Windows 7 doesn't recognize my external hard drive

[tricon7]

I"ve had a Simpletech external hard drive for a few years now, and it's worked great on every computer that's had Windows XP (it's a plug and play). However, I just bought a new laptop with Windows 7, and when I tried to plug it in to the USB port on it, it just told me "USB device not recognized." The power light comes on, too. This is a brand new computer, so I'm not taking it apart to reassemble anything, and the external HD still works fine on my XP computers, so I know it has to be something about Windows 7 it doesn't like.

Help!

 

[Tews]

Check your device manager and make sure that your USB drivers are up to date...

 

[tricon7]

I did this - all the drivers are up to date. Still no solution.

 

[Dave76]

Does it show up in Disk Management?

Is the external IDE or SATA?

Have you tried booting with the external plugged in?

Can you give us some specs on your new laptop?

 

[tricon7]

Does it show up in Disk Management?

Is the external IDE or SATA?

Have you tried booting with the external plugged in?

Can you give us some specs on your new laptop?

It doesn't show up anywhere. I don't know if it's IDE or SATA. I've rebooted with it plugged in - no difference. My new laptop is what you'd expect with a new one - Windows 7, lots of space, several USB ports. Can you be specific about what specs you want?

 

[karlsnooks]

Use Speccy and complete your System Spec info.

​

SPECCY- System Information Tool
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Operating System, CPU and Temp, Ram, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals, Network info.
Simply put—this is the best and it’s free!

 

[tricon7]

Use Speccy and complete your System Spec info.



SPECCY- System Information Tool
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Operating System, CPU and Temp, Ram, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals, Network info.
Simply put—this is the best and it’s free!

I have no idea what you're asking. Are you trying to sell me something?

 

[Dave76]

Click the link posted by karlsnooks, download the program, it's free.

Run it, it will tell you all of your computers specs.

In the lower left corner of any of your posts click the "My System Specs", then click "Update your System Specs".



Fill in all the info you can, this will help us to get a resolution to your problem.

 

[tricon7]

Ok, here's the specs on my new computer. I didn't know how to do a copy and paste, so it's here as an attachment. Thanks.

 

[Mark Phelps]

Don't know if this will help ... but I routinely use an external drive adapter to plugin drives for reformatting, repartitioning, and other such stuff. When I do that, the drive does NOT appear in the drive list.

What I have to do is the following:
1) Go into Disk Management
2) Scroll down the page until I see the entry for the drive -- usuall near the bottom
3) Notice that it says "Offline"
4) Right-click and select "Online"

After that, the drive is assigned a letter and it then appears both in the drive list in my file manager and is available for use.

I think that, sometimes, drives attached via USB have to be manually "mounted" in this manner.

Try this and see if it works.

 

[Faladu]

What's the specific model of that external hard drive?
OP should look at their web site IMHO, this could easily be not compatible with Windows 7.
However, if the internal drive can be removed from the enclosure, it might still be salvageable.
I have a SATA/IDE external to USB drive device (around $20) for this purpose.
If tons of space is needed, easy fix, USB enclosures and whatever drive you want to cram in them or that one, just buy based on 2.5/3.5 size of drive and the connector type, SATA or IDE.
------
Made me laugh when he asked if Speccy was something someone was trying to sell him.
Thanks for that.

 

[tricon7]

Ok, what I've learned so far - my newer laptop with Windows 7 uses power saving features (as most of them do now). The newer external hard drives use half the power of the older ones, while possessing twice the storage space(!) So the current laptops only provide half the amperage that my older ext. HD needs. Thus, my ext. HD isn't provided with enough power to "start" and be recognized by my laptop.

So I wonder if Windows 7 has a way to bump up the power to the USB ports? If someone can assist with this, it would keep me from having to buy a new ext. HD.

 

[foazrepairs]

external hdd not recognised

hi, im new to this... i am working on a sony vaio vpceh laptop for a friend... he wants everything backed up on an external hard drive. i bought a seagate slim 500gb drive to back up on but the laptop doesnt recognise it. i tried the same hdd on my acer laptop and works fine. i also tried a brand new sandisk 8gb usb drive and it did exactly the same. however when i tried my old sandisk usb stick it worked on the sony laptop. in device manager the drive is recognised but with an yellow exclamation mark and in disk management theres nothing there. this has really baffled me i hope someone can help me on this asap. thank you.