Member Avatar for agh55

I'm running Windows 7 on an Acer laptop. I have tried two known and working External hard divers on my laptop. I can see both on the Device manger and it states both drivers are working, however they are not appearing on my Computer. i have followed previous threads and have checked Disk Management. When the external hard drive is not plugged in, i see my C drive, however when i plug in via the USB,I cant open the disk management, I get a message stating "loading disk configuration information". if i remove the External Hard Drive, and reboot the PC, I can open the Disk management. If I now insert the External Hard Drive, i can see it in the lower part of the Disk managment screen, but i cant do anything with it.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by BigPaw

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Because could see the drives in Device Manager and safe mode let Windows mount them, the most likely class of causes is a software/driver/shell-level conflict or an enumeration problem that makes the Disk Management MMC sit waiting for the device. That explains the "loading disk configuration information" hang: the UI is blocked while Windows tries to talk to the device or parse a damaged partition table, not necessarily a dead drive.

Practical next steps (ordered, non-destructive first):

  • Check Event Viewer (System) right after plugging the drive for disk, kernel‑PnP or driver errors — the error text and Event ID point to the failing component.

  • From an elevated command prompt use diskpart to rescan and see if Windows even lists the disk:

    diskpart
rescan
list disk
list volume
select disk X    <-- replace X with the disk number seen
detail disk
online disk
exit

  • In Device Manager use "View -> Devices by connection" to confirm the device chain. If the USB device is enumerated under the USB hub but not listed as a disk, try uninstalling the USB Mass Storage device (do not format) and then "Scan for hardware changes."

  • If the drive is intermittent or Disk Management still freezes, suspect enclosure/cable electronics; test the bare drive in a different known-good adapter or a desktop SATA port.

  • If safe mode consistently fixes it, disable non-Microsoft shell extensions/startup items (Autoruns or ShellExView) to isolate the interfering component. Make a restore point before changes.

If important data is present, avoid reformatting or initializing the disk; use read-only recovery tools (TestDisk or a sector copier) or consult a recovery specialist. The points raised by (file system issues), (power/enclosure problems) and (drive-letter/visibility quirks) are all complementary checks once the above diagnostics narrow the cause.

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Member Avatar for CimmerianX

IS this a brand new disk or was it formatted in another system with another file system? Sometimes, Windows disk management will flake out with MAC journaled file system or ext4 and the like.

If the disk has nothing on it, you should be able to use any Linux Live CD to boot and format the usb disk or write all 0's to the disk using something like Darren's boot and nuke disk. Just be sure if you do, you are nuking the correct disk and not your local drive.

Member Avatar for agh55

I now appear to have solved my problem, I started by accident the laptop in safemode and was able to immediately ableto see both the external drives on my computer and disk management. I rebooted the Laptop and low and behold both the hard drives were immediately picked up. problem solved, i dont know how?

Member Avatar for adam_k

Could it be that your laptop doesn't give enough power through USB to properly power the disks up?
Try an external powered USB hub - make sure it's powered or it's only gonna make it worse.

Edited by adam_k
Member Avatar for BigPaw

It's a rare quirk in Windows (ahem, feature) where if the drive(s) are allocated letters higher than the Optical Drive they won't show properly. It's typically fixed by giving the Optical Drive another letter, such as 'Z:' temporarily and then it should behave itself, if not then, then after a restart.

Maybe twiddling in Safe Mode does a similar job. :-)

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