Windows 10 Version: 1909
This is the second day of having my new Dell G15 laptop.
I have two identical Samsung 2TB external hard drives.
I want to connect two drives to transfer some files from one to another.
It can't be done: The other drive does not show.
It could be the drivers need updating but using 'Device Manager' it says they are up to date.
Any help will be much appreciated.
This may be due to both the disks having the same Unique ID.
Plug in both the drives.
Open Windows Disk Management.
In the disk map , Right Click on the disk that is marked as Missing or Offline.
In the resulting menu , click on Online.
Done. This would have written a new and different Unique ID to the drive and it should be accessible now.
I forgot to say but I have actually done this already.
Only one external hard drive was showing and that is online.
Perhaps I should change the unique ID for one of these external hard drives?
Do you mean to say that the second disk was not showing at all in Windows Disk Management?
Please plug in both the drives and post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management.
Just connected the second external hard drive after seeing the first drive in 'Disk Management'.
As soon as the second drive was connected the first drive disappeared and then none of the external hard drives was showing.
When connecting an external drive and having 'Disk Management' open I would normally see the new drive appear but this didn't happen.
I decided to close 'Disk Management' and open it again but it looks like it's crashed because nothing is showing now.
I will have to restart the laptop.
This is so fustrating. I want to do the most simplest of things (connect two external hard drives at the same time) and I can't do it.
This is the first time I've started using Windows 10 and it's not looking good.
Thanks for your help so far.
- - - Updated - - -
I have ransomware protection on.
Just noticed that WinSAT.exe was blocked for protected folder
\Device\HarddiskVolume3
Don't know if that could have caused a problem?
I've not restarted my laptop yet after coming across this and trying to work out what WinSAT.exe does.
Plug both drives in, restart computer and boot into Setup (Bios) under System Information you will see a list of all of your drives plugged into the computer. Does it show both drives?
If so, boot into Windows and open Disk Management. If it crashes, then one of the drives has issues. Unplug one drive and in Disk Management, go to the Toolbar to Action and Rescan Disks, to recognize a disk.
You can also go to Device Manager, are there any yellow flags there? If so, right click and Uninstall it. Now Right click any device and choose Scan for Hardware Changes. If no yellow flags expand Disk Drives, are both drives showing?
Before trying your suggestion I decided to run a sfc scan. Corruption was found (which surprised me as I've only had it for a few days now) and was fixed, which is good news.
I then connected one of the identical Samsung external hard drives (not both yet) and a different external hard drive from Toshiba.
They both connected as they should, which is good.
I've removed the Toshiba drive and connected the other Samsung External hard drive and they've both connected and are showing correctly but the Samsung external hard drive that I connected first, disappeared (when viewing 'Disk Magangement') and then both connected correctly.
'Disk Management' said that both Samsung external hard drives were 'healthy'.
I'm wondering, even though they have now both connected is there a conflict with these two and should I change the ID of one of them?
One thing I noticed though, is when looking at each external hard drive folder on my laptop, down the left hand side under 'This PC' it shows all hard drives connected, but it's showing two of each external hard drive I have connected. Any idea why this is and how to fix this?
Last edited by Autobahn; 01 Aug 2020 at 09:08.
You have to Edit the Registry, Backup the Registry first before editing, of course.
How to Fix Windows Explorer Showing Drives Twice in the Sidebar
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