Windows 7 Does Not Recognize My External HDD

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I have Windows 7 Pro in a dual boot scenario on my machine which I’ll refer to as setup1 and 2. I also have an external Western Digital (WD) My Book HDD, that is connected through an eSATA port that I use for my secondary backups. On setup 1 Windows recognizes my external drive and all works just fine. However, when I boot into setup 2 Windows does not recognize the external drive. It doesn’t show up in Explorer, Device Manager, Disk Management or anywhere else I look, like it doesn’t exist. I contacted WD because I thought maybe the drivers might be bad, but WD does not provide the drivers because they’re provided by Windows. How do I get Windows to recognize the drive?

Thanx,
Zepe

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Hi Zepe and welcome to the Lounge!

Does your external drive also have a USB port, and if so, have you tested that to see if both setup 1 and setup 2 detect the drive?

Does your setup 2 Windows not recognize your eSATA drive when you restart after working in your setup 1 Windows partition? Or, does it not recognize the drive even when you do a cold boot straight into setup 2?

I am assuming you are dual booting another version of Windows with your Windows 7 Pro, and that your older version of Windows was installed on the internal hard drive first, and is most likely your setup 1 Windows. In a dual boot situation, Windows 7 should always be installed after the older version of Windows has been installed to prevent problems.

The eSATA port should be configured for AHCI in the BIOS. If you have not already done so, plug the drive in before booting the computer, rather than plugging it in after booting like you would do a USB drive.

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Hi Gerald,

As I mentioned above setup 1 works fine and recognizes the drive normally. Whenever I boot into setup 2 (which is the same Windows version as setup 1) I turn on the external drive prior to booting. I really don’t want to use USB for this drive because of the speed difference between the two.

Thanx,
Zepe

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To be sure I understand correctly, you have two installations of Windows 7 Pro on two separate partitions or two hard drives on the same computer?

Do each of your Win7 Pro installs have their own unique product key, or were they both installed from the same installation DVD using the same product key?

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Both the installations are both on the same drive, but on different partitions, in any event the problem is solved. I was finally able to get Windows to update the drivers and now the external drive is being recognized.

Thanks for your assistance,
Zepe

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Happy to hear you solved the problem with updated drivers, and thanks for posting that so others can benefit.

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