External Hard Drives Unrecognized

B

BSquared18

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

01BackupDriveNotRecognized_zps784eef7f.jpg


02unknowndevice_zps7db45419.jpg


03troubleshootthedevice_zpsf3131f41.jpg


04helpandsupportredevice_zpsb6bc7c11.jpg
 
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
 
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
 
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