My PC won't recognize my external, but my friends will.

[proflashrtist]

Hello,
Up until yesterday everything was fine. Then my WD external just stopped being recognized by my computer. Odd thing is when I plug it into my friends laptop it works fine. Any ideas?

 

[CaedenV]

when I have had this problem it has been because of a drive letter conflict win WinXP. It gets confused and simply will not reccognize the drive. Try removing or changing the name of a drive that has taken it's place, or use Diskpart.exe to reassign drive letters.

 

[fanaticws]

Hello,
Up until yesterday everything was fine. Then my WD external just stopped being recognized by my computer. Odd thing is when I plug it into my friends laptop it works fine. Any ideas?

If you run windows 7 or Vista go to Control Panel, System, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management. In right pane you should see your external HD. Right click it and select Change Drive Letter And Paths... Click Change and from drop down menu select available drive letter of your choice and click OK twice. Close Computer Management. You should see your drive listed in Windows Explorer now.
Cheers

 

[proflashrtist]

Strangest thing. I fixed it by shutting the laptop down, removing the battery and holding the power button for about ten seconds. Started it back up without the battery in and it works fine. So my question is...what the heck haha