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Backup hard drive in USB caddy

rubble2rubble2 Posts: 410
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in PC & Mac Hardware and Software #1
I use a hard drive in a USB caddy to regularly back up the PC 'C' Drive, this has always worked well until today.

I plugged in the external caddy (with HDD in place) as usual but the drive fails to appear in the 'This PC' screen as it normally does - the PC generates a two tone sound as it normally does when plugging in a device via the USB ports but the drive doesn't appear.

However if I go to device manager and expand the Disc Drive option, the external HDD appears there as you would expect, any suggestions please?

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    cp2cp2 Posts: 957
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    #2
    Does the Device Manager allocate a drive letter to the drive? Is this a unique? You may need to assign a (different) drive letter to the drive.

    You could also try rebooting the PC. It does sometimes sort things out.
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    rubble2rubble2 Posts: 410
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    #3
    Thanks for the reply,
    Can't see a drive letter allocated for the external drive (but having said that the 'C' drive doesn't appear to have a drive letter showing in device manage either).

    Just for clarification, this is Windows 11 I am using, I have tried rebooting already but no change.
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    rubble2rubble2 Posts: 410
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    #4
    Just checked on Macrium reflect and both disc drives appear there as well - confusing.
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    misarmisar Posts: 3,050
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    edited 14/04/24 - 15:05 #5
    Open a command prompt (or Windows Run), type diskmgmt.msc and press enter.
    See if the USB drive shows up with or without a drive letter.
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    rubble2rubble2 Posts: 410
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    #6
    misar wrote: »
    Open a command prompt (or Windows Run), type diskmgmt.msc and press enter.
    See if the USB drive shows up with or without a drive letter.

    Many thanks, did as you suggested and took the option to asign a drive letter - now visible again and working fine.
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    cp2cp2 Posts: 957
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    #7
    I'm running Win 11 and looking at Disk Management (same as Win10)...
    There is a summary at the top which may show drive letters but if you scroll down there is a section for each regognised disc (Disc0, Disc1...) which shows their allocated partitions and their drive letters.
    USB drives are usually allocated the next available drive letter as they are plugged in but this can fall down if a drive has been allocated a drive letter in the past and this drive letter is perhaps already in use as far as the OS is concerned.
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    noise747noise747 Posts: 30,884
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    #8
    cp2 wrote: »
    I'm running Win 11 and looking at Disk Management (same as Win10)...
    There is a summary at the top which may show drive letters but if you scroll down there is a section for each regognised disc (Disc0, Disc1...) which shows their allocated partitions and their drive letters.
    USB drives are usually allocated the next available drive letter as they are plugged in but this can fall down if a drive has been allocated a drive letter in the past and this drive letter is perhaps already in use as far as the OS is concerned.

    That explains it, I have never had a drive that lose it drive letter. I used to have a Cd writer years ago that for some reason did not like being set as Z.

    This is the thing that I had to get used to on the Mac, no drive letters, not sure if it is a good thing or not.,
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