External Hard Drive Recognition

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Hi
I have 2 x WD Elements 500gb external hard drives, my pc will only recognise one at a time, thought I found solution by changing drive letter assignment, changed letter to Z with one plugged in, unplugged and then plugged second one in but it was immediately recognised by the same drive petter Z, running win7

I have another ext hard drive WD passport and I can see that one along with one of the others plugged in.

What have I overlooked surely it must be possible to see both external hard drives even if they are the same model.

Help appreciated :bonk:
 
With them both plugged in can you assign different drive letters?

Normally drive letters are assigned by windows by the drives hardware id. I've never seen two drives even same make and model cause issues.
 
I have 2*2TB WD external hard drives and they are both seen by Windows as soon as they are switched on.

I did have to assign drive letters to stop them messing with my card reader drives but other than that no problems at all.

David
 
neil_g said:
With them both plugged in can you assign different drive letters?

Normally drive letters are assigned by windows by the drives hardware id. I've never seen two drives even same make and model cause issues.
Click to expand...

Hi Neil
With both plugged in they are showing in device manager, when in the device management area where you change the drive letter only one is showing, so unable to do it that way.
If I change the drive letter to Y on the first one when plugging in the second one it is automatically recognised by the same drive letter
 
Willid1 said:
I have 2*2TB WD external hard drives and they are both seen by Windows as soon as they are switched on.

I did have to assign drive letters to stop them messing with my card reader drives but other than that no problems at all.

David
Click to expand...

Well at least it is possible, just got to figure out how to do it
 
RKC said:
Well at least it is possible, just got to figure out how to do it
Click to expand...

The only thing I can think of is my drives have a single USB port each they are not sharing via a hub.

They are also USB 3.0 - not sure if that would make any difference though as I had a pair of USB 2.0 1TB previously and they both worked in a similar manner on single ports.

Good luck

David
 
Willid1 said:
The only thing I can think of is my drives have a single USB port each they are not sharing via a hub.

They are also USB 3.0 - not sure if that would make any difference though as I had a pair of USB 2.0 1TB previously and they both worked in a similar manner on single ports.

Good luck

David
Click to expand...
neil_g said:
In disk management right click and rescan drives, do they both appear?
Click to expand...

No Neil only one which ever one I plug in first, think maybe David has hit upon something, it is reasonably old machine and although there are 2 front ports and 4 rear ports I am not that they are completely different feeds, as they are 2 identical hard drives they both want to use the same driver :shrug: think I might just bight the bullet and buy another make, I know I can run 2 as my 300gb passport and any one of the 500gb are accessible when plugged into together
 
Are they 2.5" without power supply or 3.5" with power supply?

Have you tried them together in a different machine?

If they are 2.5" I was wondering if it was a power issue as they would draw power from the USB.
 
Thank you all, got a Seagate one and both are visible.
 
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