Dual USB Hard Drives Not Recognized

Michael Winslow · Post by **Michael Winslow** » 23 Feb 2011 6:28 pm

I've added 2 Seagate GoFlex USB drives to my Windows 7 computer. They both work...no problem there. But my computer only recognizes one at a time. When I plug both of them in at the same time I only see one icon.

When I go to Control Panel and look up my devices both drives appear there. Any Ideas how I can get both of them to appear in my drives on Computer at the same time?

Thanks,
Mike

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 23 Feb 2011 6:42 pm

Try shutting down the PC. Then unplug one of the USB drives and restart. Once Windows stabilizes, open My Computer and verify that the one USB drive is assigned a drive letter. Double click to open it in an Explorer Window and move it to one side of the screen.

Now plug in the second external USB drive and see if My Computer assigns it a different drive letter and if it too can be opened in an Explorer Window.

If your PC is now able to assign separate drive letters to those drives, leave them connected and restart the computer. Upon rebootation, see if they are still both drive-lettered.

Michael Winslow · Post by **Michael Winslow** » 23 Feb 2011 6:48 pm

Thanks Wiz,

I'll follow your directions and see what happens. At this point probably tomorrow....it's dinner time out here.

Michael Winslow · Post by **Michael Winslow** » 25 Feb 2011 8:38 pm

Hi Wiz,

I unplugged one USB drive and the other was in my computer. Then I went to the Windows explorer window and double clicked and saw the icon on the other side of the screen like you said. But when I plugged in the other drive it didn't appear in My Computer with all of my other drives. Any thoughts on what I should do next?

Thanks,
MIke

Jim Kennedy · Post by **Jim Kennedy** » 28 Feb 2011 11:12 am

I just bought a couple of these at Costco. Great price for 2 TB if anyone is interested. I haven't tried hooking them both up, but I would bet that there is something in the drivers and backup software causing this. Maybe the auto backup feature gets confused with two drives? I would try going to the seagate forum:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/GoFlex-GoF ... PHD_and_PU

I took a quick look but did not see anything. If you post there I bet you will find a solution.

Chris Dorch · Post by **Chris Dorch** » 1 Mar 2011 5:00 pm

Michael Winslow wrote:Hi Wiz,

I unplugged one USB drive and the other was in my computer. Then I went to the Windows explorer window and double clicked and saw the icon on the other side of the screen like you said. But when I plugged in the other drive it didn't appear in My Computer with all of my other drives. Any thoughts on what I should do next?

Thanks,
MIke

My thought is a drive letter conflict... Try this..

Attach the 1st drive... Let it acquire a drive letter... verify that you can access the drive.

Plug in the 2nd drive... Wait for the device driver to tell you that it's good. Click on the Windows button (the one in the bottom left corner that used to be labeled "Start"), find "Computer" and right click and choose "Manage." In the computer manager MMC, find and expand "Storage." Under that key, there will be "Disk Management". (Optionally, you can do Windows Key + R, in the run line type "MMC" with no quotes and click okay. When the MMC window opens, choose File>Add/Remove Snap In, highlight Disk Management and click the Add button and OK). Look at the disks and see if there are any partitions without drive letters that are the size of the disk in question. If there are, right click on that partition, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths, give it a drive letter that's not in use, and click OK. Viola.. you should be in business...

If the above nonsense yeilds nothing, then I am uncertain as to what your issue might be.