An Education with Western Digital USB Hard Drives

[N1LAF]

I've been running WD drives exclusively for eons in external enclosures (but not purchased that way) and never had a problem. I also format new drives before using them, even if it's just the "quick format."

Bizarre, and odd that I couldn't find anything on the net about this other than some instances that were pretty vague - "Plugged it in and the computer wouldn't see it" stuff. If it shows up in Windows' Disk Manager, delete volume, create volume, create partition, mark partition active, format, done (or something like that). I imagine Paul tried that, tho...

I suspect most people do not attempt to use 2 or more USB external drives, and thus the low reporting on this. The WD support seemed to be aware of this issue, and immediately directed me to "My Computer", right click, then "Manage" to see all the drives and partitions. I tried the add/assign drive letters, but to no avail, so I will be turning to bare drives in external enclosures.

[kf0rt]

I suspect most people do not attempt to use 2 or more USB external drives, and thus the low reporting on this. The WD support seemed to be aware of this issue, and immediately directed me to "My Computer", right click, then "Manage" to see all the drives and partitions. I tried the add/assign drive letters, but to no avail, so I will be turning to bare drives in external enclosures.

Just curious if you tried repartitioning the drive. I've got a number of external drives here (used primarily for backup), so normally run just one at a time. Just for fun, I fired three of them up (I'd need to dig out more power supplies to run more), and they all came right up -- two WD 1TB drives and one WD 640 GB. The main drives in this box (3x 1TB WD "Green" SATA) are the same as what I use in the enclosures.

[N1LAF]

Just curious if you tried repartitioning the drive. I've got a number of external drives here (used primarily for backup), so normally run just one at a time. Just for fun, I fired three of them up (I'd need to dig out more power supplies to run more), and they all came right up -- two WD 1TB drives and one WD 640 GB. The main drives in this box (3x 1TB WD "Green" SATA) are the same as what I use in the enclosures.

I can only speak about WD Elements and Essentials, and I shouldn't have to 'reformat' to make them work. I can run multiple external Seagate free Agents and Maxtor USB drives without problem, which tells me that there is something particular with WD Essentials/Elements (1T, 1.5T, and 2T external drives).

[KC2UGV]

With the Western Digital drives, connect an external USB drive, and you see the drive letter assigned to that drive. Plug in a second WD external USB drive, and no drive letter is assigned to it, even though if you look at it through 'Manage', the drive is there, but no drive letters.

With Seagate drives, plug in an external drive, you get the drive letter assigned. Plug in a second drive, the next available drive letter is assigned. What spooked me about Seagate, is the clicking from some of the drives, and the failure to work when plugged in. I would have to cycle the power like three times before the drive connected. Western Digital didn't have these problems, they just had other problems.

So, I am looking for external drive enclosures that do not behave like the WD external USB drives. This way, I can use better drives without the problems, and to be able to use more than one external USB drive on the system.

Paul, that's actually an easy fix.

Plug in Drive #1. Go into System, Disk Management. Assign the drive another letter, like Z:

Now, unplug drive #1, and plug in drive #2. You should see it now. Go ahead and plug in drive #1. You should see them both now.

This used to happen a lot with USB thumb drives, when manufacturers hard coded drive E: or F: into the firmware. WD might not have dropped this from the cage firmware.

[N1LAF]

Paul, that's actually an easy fix.

Plug in Drive #1. Go into System, Disk Management. Assign the drive another letter, like Z:

Now, unplug drive #1, and plug in drive #2. You should see it now. Go ahead and plug in drive #1. You should see them both now.

This used to happen a lot with USB thumb drives, when manufacturers hard coded drive E: or F: into the firmware. WD might not have dropped this from the cage firmware.

Already tried that. Changed the drive letter to 'T'. When I plugged in the second drive, it also assumed the letter 'T'. I gave up on WD external USB drives, and now wilol be looking into external cases and standard bare drives.

I have been using the XP utility "Computer Management" for these operations.

[kf0rt]

I can only speak about WD Elements and Essentials, and I shouldn't have to 'reformat' to make them work. I can run multiple external Seagate free Agents and Maxtor USB drives without problem, which tells me that there is something particular with WD Essentials/Elements (1T, 1.5T, and 2T external drives).

Probably true, but "particular" doesn't necessarily equate to "broken." I've never really trusted factory formats. In the old days, doing your own partitioning and formatting was mandatory.

[KC2UGV]

Already tried that. Changed the drive letter to 'T'. When I plugged in the second drive, it also assumed the letter 'T'. I gave up on WD external USB drives, and now wilol be looking into external cases and standard bare drives.

I have been using the XP utility "Computer Management" for these operations.

Weird... Usually, that works even with the USB hard disks that have exhibited this behavior. And just using the Computer Mgmt panel.

[N1LAF]

How about this for a two-drive solution...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

[n6hcm]

I tried the add/assign drive letters, but to no avail, so I will be turning to bare drives in external enclosures.

if the volume isn't formatted then you can't assign a drive letter or mount point ....

[n6hcm]

How about this for a two-drive solution...

i have something similar that i bought about a year ago ... like you see in the reviews, documentation is skimpy (on the device i bought) but there was no rocket science involved in making it work correctly. in my example i just have the case running as JBOD (i don't have a real RAID controller and am not a fan of software RAID), it holds four disks and i've only installed two so far, and it works just fine. of course, now that i've written those words ...