I have an EasyStore 2TB drive that I’ve used for a while. On the Dell Laptop I have now, the USB drive has developed an odd and annoying quirk. My PC will not recognize the external drive (no sound, no spin-up, nothing) UNLESS I connect it though a USB hub (unpowered) or I connect it to my powered dock (USB-C to the PC). Other devices work with these USB ports, including other WD USB drives like Passports. This PC used to work fine with this drive, then it went to about a 50/50 chance and now - never, unless docked or hubbed. Never gives an issue in those configurations.
There could be many factors that can lead to this issue, such as:
- The corrupt or unstable USB driver
- Windows is missing important updates
- USB controllers may have become unstable or corrupt
- Corrupt USB drive or partition
You can try below options as a solution to fix your USB drive:
- Restart your system
- Try different PC/Laptop
- Re-install USB drivers in your system
- Unplug all connected USB drives
- Use data recovery software
Further, I suggest you to check the below link for more detailed solution to fix the issue:
Hope this will help.
Thanks for the suggestions but, unfortunately no luck. I went through all the step in both links.
It’s really weird. I plug into my laptop, the drive spins up but is not visible. I plug in a USB hub (Inateck HBU3VL3-4 in this case) and plug the drive into it and it shows up fine. I plug my laptop into the UBS-C docking cable and I can see the drive just fine when it’s plugged into my Dell dock. All 3 laptop ports work with all my other USB devices, including storage AND this drive used to work directly plugged into my laptop (Dell Latitude 7490) - just mysteriously stopped one day.
