External Hard Drives Unrecognized

Hello,

Suddenly, neither of two different USB external hard drives that I have is recognized on my computer running Windows XP. I have had the computer and the hard drives a long time and this is the first time they have had a problem. One hard drive is a Western Digital Elements drive; the other a Click-Free drive.

I know it's not a problem with the hard drives because they work on a different computer. I don't think it's the USB ports because another mass storage device--a digital voice recorder--is recognized in the same USB ports I had tried with the other drives.

Below are screen grabs of a progression of messages I receive every time I try to operate an external hard drive.

I've purchased and run DriverUpdater and FixCleaner. That hasn't helped this issue.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bill

 

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/usb-device-not-recognized/

in the article above, the solution was to turn off the pc, unplug from the wall for a few minutes, plug back in and reboot computer, see if this works for you.

 

Thanks for the tip Elizabeth, but no luck. Unplugged the computer last night, plugged it in this morning, and booted it up. The problem persists.

Any other suggestions, anyone?

Bill

 

did you go to unknown device in Device Manager and double click and uninstall , then restart pc and let windows reload the driver?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871233

 

http://techblissonline.com/usb-device-not-recognized/

this article has some other steps to troubleshoot usb not recognized.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925196

above has a fix-it that may help.

 

RE: did you go to unknown device in Device Manager and double click and uninstall , then restart pc and let windows reload the driver?


First, thanks for your help. I tried the above and it worked.

Further investigation indicates that the problem lies in a KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switch that I started using between this older Windows XP computer and a Windows 8 one I just bought and set up. Might have to do with the fact that I added a new, more complex, gaming keyboard. The KVM manufacturer says "multi-media" keyboards can cause a problem. The switch causes the USB connections on the older computer to become unstable.

My solution will be to gradually migrate over to the new computer and eventually phase out the old one.

Bill

 

Glad you figured it out.