Windows 7 does not detect multiple External Hard Drives

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I have recently purchased a HP Pavilion laptop Winndows 7 Home Premium. I have two 500 GB external Hard Drives. When I connect them individually to the system, they are recognized and I can copy files from/to to these external Drives. But when I try to connect both at the same time, Windows 7 does not detect the drive I connect second. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Anonymous

If you are still having the problem detecting the 2nd external hard drive, then I would like to share with you that I have also experienced the same problem when I tried to connect 3 external Seagates 500Gigs each, and each of the HDs with their own power supply.I would like to also share with you, if you are still having the problem, that I have been able to connect and my Windows 7 Pro has been able to detect all 3 external HDs and each drive has its own letter assigned to it.Each external drive (ED) is accessible like if nothing ever happened.The issue seems to be a conflict of IDs assigned to each (ED) when we connect an (ED), then when we connect a 2nd (ED), then the 2nd (ED) is trying to use an ID that has already been assigned to the 1st (ED), therefore, the 2nd (ED) stays "offline" to avoid a conflict with the 1st (ED).The technical term is "The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online"To make the 2nd and 3rd, and 4th (ED) to be online, then you have to go to:- Computer Management- Disk Management- Scroll down so you can see your external drives- You will notice that the 1st (ED) is "Online"- You will notice that the other (EDs) are "Offline"- Right-Click on "Offline" and a shortcut menu will give the option to turn (ED) "Online"- Wait for a few seconds and now that (ED) will become available to be used.I hope these findings will help you guys minimize your frustrations as I had them before I found this solution.

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Anonymous

If the drives are powered by the USB bus and do not have their own external power supplies the problem is that the laptop is not supplying sufficient USB power to drive both.

The USB specification is that each port should supply 500mA at 5V. To conserve their batteries, laptops usually provide 500mA to be shared between all the available ports. If you need to use several USB devices with significant power requirements you need either an external powered USB hub or to provide the devices with their own power supplies.

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62 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-06-28T19:40:04+00:00

Well said ! I agree, I researched the blogs and forums and was informed that my computer was not installing the drivers... so I was going into device manager deleting usb ports then shutting down to reinstall drivers or turning computer on and off a couple of times to reinstall when all the time it was because of insufficient power! A usb hub with an external power source remedied this situation.

Thanks !
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Anonymous

2011-02-23T16:51:40+00:00

Hello Vinod, Hello AzTechs, and Hello Q4trader,If you are still having the problem detecting the 2nd external hard drive, then I would like to share with you that I have also experienced the same problem when I tried to connect 3 external Seagates 500Gigs each, and each of the HDs with their own power supply.I would like to also share with you, if you are still having the problem, that I have been able to connect and my Windows 7 Pro has been able to detect all 3 external HDs and each drive has its own letter assigned to it.Each external drive (ED) is accessible like if nothing ever happened.The issue seems to be a conflict of IDs assigned to each (ED) when we connect an (ED), then when we connect a 2nd (ED), then the 2nd (ED) is trying to use an ID that has already been assigned to the 1st (ED), therefore, the 2nd (ED) stays "offline" to avoid a conflict with the 1st (ED).The technical term is "The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online"To make the 2nd and 3rd, and 4th (ED) to be online, then you have to go to:- Computer Management- Disk Management- Scroll down so you can see your external drives- You will notice that the 1st (ED) is "Online"- You will notice that the other (EDs) are "Offline"- Right-Click on "Offline" and a shortcut menu will give the option to turn (ED) "Online"- Wait for a few seconds and now that (ED) will become available to be used.I hope these findings will help you guys minimize your frustrations as I had them before I found this solution.

brilliant "catfood" had the same problen and your answer above sorted it in

a flash regards george_hon_new_malden
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Anonymous

2009-12-05T04:38:00+00:00

I have recently purchased a HP Pavilion laptop Winndows 7 Home Premium. I have two 500 GB external Hard Drives. When I connect then individually to the system, they are recognized and I can copy files from/to to these external Drives. But when I try to connect both at the same time, Windows 7 does not detect the drive I connect second. Anyhelp is greatly appreciated.

I have the exact same prob on my brand new Win7 PC. I have 2 x 1TB WD HD's (1 of them is 3 days old) both have their own power supply and just like u said, when I connect the second drive, it's not detected. Individually they both work fine???
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