External hard drive not found?

[bodinc]

Hi,
Im runnign Windows 7 and recently bought a 1TB WD external harddrive. Installed it, everything worked fine until I plugged in another WD ext hard drive. Suddenly the 1TB drive has stopped working, and the computer cannot even find it! The drivers are all up to date so thats not the problem. The other, smaller drive works fine too. Im suspecting there might be some problem with the letters assigned to the drives, but i can;t change it, as the computer doesn't even recognize the drive when it is plugged in.


Someone please help me, as I really would like to use my 1TB drive!

[StealthyV]

The computer might have trouble assigning drive letters- keep the drives plugged in and powered-on- then reboot.

When the computer restarts, hit "<DEL>" or "<F2>" keys to enter the system BIOS, which is where the hardware settings are assigned. Using your arrow keys, the "<+>" and "<->" keys, and "<Enter>" you can adjust the settings. There should be a folder called "Hard Disk Drives" - go to that one and see if both drives are recognized.

You can also set up which device boots first, etc.

If the computer can recognize the drives on boot, then it should work from within Windows.

Good luck!

**Edit: be sure to hit "<F10>" to save the settings, hit "<Enter>" to confirm save, then it should reboot the system. Do nothing, and the computer will restart safely. Remember what you've changed, in case you need to change it back!

~Branson

[osprey4]

Sounds like a drive letter conflict, not a BIOS issue, since these are external drives. See if this procedure helps: Cruzer flash drive could not be detected due to drive letter conflict