Hp 15 notebook not recognizing external harddrive

[Rachelle_3]

My external hard drive works on my other windows and mac computers but not this one. When I open disk manager, the device is recognized and has a blue line but in the left hand column there is no letter assigned to it. When I right click on it the option "Change Drive letters and path" is not available. The drivers are updated.

Any ideas?

 

[drtweak]

when in Disk manger on the left where it says the Disk X where X is the disk number can you right click on that and make the disk online? I know sometimes with my USB Bootable Windows 10 I have to do that when ever i plug it into a new PC.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, @Rachelle!

I agree with @drtweak, you should check if the external hard drive is actually online on this laptop. Another thing you should keep in mind is to always store a duplicate of the data you have on it somewhere else as well. Having only one copy of the files is not a backup solution, even if it's stored on an external (backup) drive.

As for the proper detection of the drive on this laptop, I'd suggest you check the official laptop manufacturer's website and make sure that the USB Hub Controller drivers are installed manually from there. Windows updates tend to install more generic and a bit outdated drivers.
You could try assigning a different drive letter through Command Prompt's DiskPart as well.

Keep us posted.
SuperSoph_WD