WD Elements 2tb External hard drive slowing down windows tremendously

i recently purchased a 2 TB hard drive (WDBU6YxxxBBK), and I have been having major trouble running my Windows 7 OS since I plugged it into my computer and loaded the drives.  Ever since i have loaded it originally, every process the computer handles has slowed down to almost a crawl.  Opening a new Internet window takes 5 minutes, loading a webpage takes 5 minutes, trying to open My Computer takes 5 minutes - every process is slow.

After plugging in the drive initially and loading the drivers, this has been the case with the OS.  Whether or not the external hard drive is plugged in or not makes no difference.  The hard drive itself appears to be fine, as I was able to (incredibly slowly) transfer over files from my computer’s hard drive to the external wD Elements drive.  The external hard drive itself is not clicking or making any other noise, and it is (usually) recognized by the computer when i plug it in after the computer boots up; although, there are occassions where I have plugged in the hard drive, then unplugged it, and then plugged it in again without restarting the computer and it has failed to recognize the hard drive.

I have attempted to plug in the hard drive to two other identical computers with the exact same OS, and the results have been the same on those computers as well.  i have discovered that the issue is resolved if I simply remove the device drivers that are installed on the main computer hard drive.  has anyone else experienced anything similar/  Is there any way for me to continue using the drive but resolve this issue?

I have exactly the same issue. I usually give up and disconnect the My Book device (also 2T) while I work, then reconnect it when I am finished. It sure would be nice to be able to leave it attached continuously so that I can feel confident in my secure backup.

I should mention that I previously had a 1T drive, which had the same problem. I am running Windows 8.1.

Do you use any automatic backup software? some can be real resource hogs.

Joe