Window 10 Laptop not recognizing any external HDDs after working fine

[healthylaff]

USB 2.0 & 3.0 Thumb drives work in all 3 USB ports.

External HDDs work on other computers just fine and were working on my ASUS U57A laptop until I removed it without properly"ejecting" it from the menu tray.

But no harm at all to drive or dock--all work fine in all other PCs. Plus, my other external drives ceased working on my ASUS lappy, too.

Obviously, it's something with Windows on this machine, as a friend has my exact same ASUS U57A and I put my dock into hers and it works flawlessly, including the fact that all of the USB device controllers in Device Manager are the same on both laptops!

I'm flummoxed. I doubt it's power, as none of my external HDDs work in the ASUS, powered or unpowered (but, again, are fine in all other PCs).

USB thumb drives DO work.

There is nothing wrong with the Docking stations or enclosures, USB 2.0 or 3.0 cords, or HDDs (they all work flawlessly on other PCs).

So, that leads me to drivers or a registry error. I cannot find any drivers that would be "generic in nature" for all external HDDs and I have no idea about registry errors.

I've searched for a couple days for a solution, so most of the obvious stuff I've tried (ie. turning on and off with external HDDs in/out/off/on etc.).

I've checked in diskmgmt.msc and the drives are not recognized BUT I can eject the docks from the menu tray (but the contents and title of the drive in the dock don't show up, just the doc itself).

Please help! TiA

 

[healthylaff]

Was able to see the drives finally using diskmgmt.msc. Don't know why it worked, but it did. Needed to change to drive letter and it worked. What a pain!