External Hard Drives not being recognized on HP laptop!

[pioneergentleman]

I have a 2 year old HP laptop with Windows 7 that will not recognize my external hard drives, one an IDE and the other a SATA drive. Both drives work fine on my desktop computer. Checked disc management and neither of my drives show up. Both drives have their own power supply. One person tells me that the problem is in my laptop security settings which are set to the factory specs, whatever those are. I really need help please?

 

[Vnxc]

Are you running windows on both computers? What file systems are the Hard drives?

 

[pioneergentleman]

Are you running windows on both computers? What file systems are the Hard drives?

Yes, Windows 7 on my laptop. Both external drives are NTFS.

 

[Vnxc]

Good that gets rid of file system compatibility issues. It could very well be your security software, try disabling it.

Does your laptop have the proper USB 2.0, 3.0 features that match the hard drives 2.0 3.0 etc?
Any software come with the drives that needs to be installed?
Check if your drivers are up to date?

 

[pioneergentleman]

"Good that gets rid of file system compatibility issues. It could very well be your security software, try disabling it.

Does your laptop have the proper USB 2.0, 3.0 features that match the hard drives 2.0 3.0 etc?
Any software come with the drives that needs to be installed?
Check if your drivers are up to date?"


That's where I get lost. I have no idea what the HP Security settings are nor how to disable or change them. My usb ports are 2.0 as are my drives so, there are no compatibility issues that I am aware of. No software had to be installed. My drivers are up to date.

My belief is that the problem is in the "HP security settings for my laptop." I just don't know enough about these settings. I did access my HP help file for answers but found nothing that tells me how to change these "security settings."

 

[Vnxc]

Look in control centre or in the lower right of the task bar for anything with security/firewall. Look for option relating to exemptions/exceptions. Turn these setting OFF/ON to see if the drive is picked up.

Do the hard drives LED's light up when you plug them in?

Also try this:
Try going to Start, right click on Computer, click on Manage, click on Disk Management under Storage on the left and your Drive should show up with a blue line.
Right click on the blue line and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. This will allow you to choose a drive letter and the external HDD should then show up in Windows Explorer.

 

[Vnxc]

Or this path ( Control panel===>administrative tools===>computer management===>Disk management)

 

[pioneergentleman]

"Try going to Start, right click on Computer, click on Manage, click on Disk Management under Storage on the left and your Drive should show up with a blue line.
Right click on the blue line and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. This will allow you to choose a drive letter and the external HDD should then show up in Windows Explorer."

Drive is not being recognized in Disk Management! I turned off Windows Firewall thinking that had something to do with it. Drive still not recognized. I am so not liking Windows 7.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Vnxc]

I'm running out of ideas
Try:
Going to Start----Run---Type in 'cmd'---type in DISKPART----Then type LIST VOLUME. See if the drives come up in there (<let me know..) There should be your laptops hard drive(s) and your external(s) look for file type (NTFS and Number of GB to identify).
Don't type anything else yet....

You could also try backing up your data somewhere else and then re-formatting the drives on your other computer to NTFS (again) or FAT32.
If its not even coming up in Disk management then it could be hardware related.

 

[pioneergentleman]

Nothing is coming up for the external drive with LIST VOLUME though my internal laptop drive is listed. Backing up my ext. HDD to another computer isn't possible because the drive is very large, 640GB. Since the drive comes up on my desktop, the problem is obviously not hardware related. I also accessed the BIOS and found nothing abnormal there.

I am completely at a loss for a solution. Am now updating every driver on my laptop using HP's newest drivers. I just don't know what else to try.

 

[Vnxc]

If its not coming up in LIST VOLUME then the very basic element of the computer does not pickup the drives.

This help us. It means that from the USB socket inwards there is and issue

We know the drives work
So that leave the USB socket itself (whether the actual socket or the software running it [drivers]) as well as the Motherboard BIOS as that reads the USB socket.
Or there is something not allowing the USB socket to function (security software)

^I've had a look online for HP security software, but i have found nothing that would suggest it is capable of cutting off your drives.
Search your control panel/computer for something called 'HP ProtectTools security manager' <Thats where any conflicting settings will be if there is any. Also look out for any anti virus software may also be conflicting

Also test a normal usb Pen Drive to determine if the USB socket is working correctly.

Other then that the only other option is to re-format the drives (reseting them as it were)

 

[pioneergentleman]

"So that leave the USB socket itself (whether the actual socket or the software running it [drivers]) as well as the Motherboard BIOS as that reads the USB socket.
Or there is something not allowing the USB socket to function (security software)

^I've had a look online for HP security software, but i have found nothing that would suggest it is capable of cutting off your drives.
Search your control panel/computer for something called 'HP ProtectTools security manager' <Thats where any conflicting settings will be if there is any. Also look out for any anti virus software may also be conflicting

Also test a normal usb Pen Drive to determine if the USB socket is working correctly.

Other then that the only other option is to re-format the drives (reseting them as it were)"

All three of my USB connections work fine when I plug in any of my usb flash drives so the usb sockets are working fine. I agree that a conflict would be in HP ProtectTools security manager however I am not seeing that anywhere on my laptop. Perhaps someone knows exactly what it is under.

I so appreciate y'alls help!