Simultaneous use of 2 or 3 USB ports

My Dell Precision M4700 laptop has two 2.0 USB ports and two 3.0 ports, each powered by the USB port. My inability to use more than one external WD Passport disk occurs regardless of which ports I use. And I vaguely remember that once upon a time I was able to use more than one WD Passport disk simultaneously, but that may be a creative false memory.

The "Best Answer" wrote: "They should all show up. Did you test the other ones individually to make sure they all are seen by the system one at a time? Are they all formatted and ready for use? Look in Drive Manager and see if they show up but need to have a drive letter assigned."

Thanks for your suggestions. Each of my three USB 3.0 external disks works fine if it is the only one installed. I can't think of a better test. And they all are formatted and available to be used (I have been using each for several years). You are right that they need to have a drive letter assigned, but I don't know how to do that.

With regard to your "Did you test...." I have no problem installing either one of my two external disks, if the other one isn't already plugged in. But any one plugged in without the other plugged in always labels itself as Q (which is the first item in my Win7sp1 operating system's start menu). Once it is plugged in I can change it to R or S as needed, but that change is only temporary.

I do not know how to "glue" the correct letter to each external disk, or how to persuade my start menu's list of Q, R, and S to apply to the correct external disk.

I have tried the following:

In my Start Menu, I select COMPUTER and right click it to get Manage, which gets me to Computer Management. The internal hard disk is Disk 0.
If I then go down to Disk Management, the first external disk plugged in shows up, with the label Disk 1 and its assigned letter Q. The second external disk plugged in also shows up with the label Disk 2, and is highlighted, but its letter R does not appear, and when I right click the middle of Disk 2 I get a list of greyed out things to do, and a not-greyed-out help link, which takes me to a bunch of alternatives that I do not understand.

Alternatively, if I go up to System Tools > Device Manager > Disk drives, I see the following:
WD My Passport 0748 USB Device
WD My Passport 0748 USB Device
WDC WD7500BPKT-75PK4T0 ATA Device

I have no idea what the third item is about. Presumably, the first one is for Disk 1 (Q) and the second one for Disk 2 (R), but they don't say so.

So I am still stuck.

RN (Roger) Folsom

Hang the 9

The key paragraph in my preceding message is:
"I have no problem installing either one of my two [actually three] external disks, if the other one isn't already plugged in. But any one plugged in without the other plugged in always labels itself as Q (which is the first item in my Win7sp1 operating system's start menu). Once it is plugged in I can change it to R or S as needed, but that change is only temporary.

"I do not know how to 'glue' the correct letter to each external disk, or how to persuade my start menu's list of Q, R, and S to apply to the correct external disk."

The drives I have been talking about are not internal disks or internal disk partitions; they are external hard disks that plug into USB ports. Therefore there is no reason not to label each of them as Q, R, and S.

But since no one in this thread is answering my "glue" question, I am wasting everyone's time including my own, so this is my last post. To everyone: don't bother answering this, because I won't see your "answer." I will contact Western Digital and see if I can find answers there.

R.N. (Roger) Folsom

My question is BOTH "how to force a drive letter or the fact that you can only see one drive at a time? From what I read, the drive letter assignment is moot till you get all three drives working" because getting two (or all three) Western Digital external disks connected simultaneously apparently requires that I assign permanent letters to each of them, and no one here is willing to tell me how to do that.

I have not yet had time to access Western Digital's website.

R.N. (Roger) Folsom

I have discovered a very simple solution to my problem. I continue to use three items in my start menu, under Programs: I wanted three adjacent letters, so I used Q (for my blue-cased Western Digital external disk; Q and blue rhyme), R (for my red-cased Western Digital external disk), and S (for my silver-cased Western Digital external disk).
Then if I first connect external disk S, then R, and then Q, (or only two of them, but in that sequence), they all connect properly and work properly.

RNFolsom