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 Post subject: USB external hard drives
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2022 7:16 pm 
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I have two Toshiba 2 tb external hard drives, 1 is almost full and the other about 1/2 full. I normally only run one of these drives at a time but I had occasion to connect them both today to transfer some files from one to the other but I was unable to connect both on my Windows 7 Pro computer. Both of them seemed to work ok Solo so I decided to copy the files from my almost full external hard drive to my "C" drive and then from the "C" drive to the 1/2 full drive. First I did a copy and paste from the full external drive to the "C" drive but when I do that, nothing happens. Then I tried a cut and paste and still nothing happens. Neither of the external drives will copy or cut and paste to my "C" drive.

Going in the reverse direction from my "C" drive to my external hard drives works fine. Any ideas what might be causing this problem??


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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2022 7:43 pm 
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Your C: drive is system and protected which means that you would need to give permission to your account to write to the drive. This is normal and is a security feature. That said you can also try not copying the files directly to the base/root of the C: drive. Create a new folder in your Documents library and then copy from the full external to that folder then copy from that folder to the other external drive. Since you already have full permissions for your Library folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. it can help as to permissions.

The bigger question is why you can't connect both externals at the same time. Do you always try to use the same USB ports? If so the first step would be to try different USB ports. USB ports work in pairs of two ports per USB hub. This means that, if using ports on the same hub, the 5 volt power going to the ports can be stressed. If the external drives are powered through the USB port two combined can pull more power than the hub can supply. Best practice would be to use ports that are NOT next to each other.

Is this a desktop or laptop system? If a desktop try using USB ports in the back rather than the front of the case. For ages back of the case USB ports have been more reliable than front ports. I can't state for fact but I suspect that this is due to the back ports being allocated mor power than the front ports.

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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2022 9:54 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
Your C: drive is system and protected which means that you would need to give permission to your account to write to the drive. This is normal and is a security feature. That said you can also try not copying the files directly to the base/root of the C: drive. Create a new folder in your Documents library and then copy from the full external to that folder then copy from that folder to the other external drive. Since you already have full permissions for your Library folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. it can help as to permissions.

The bigger question is why you can't connect both externals at the same time. Do you always try to use the same USB ports? If so the first step would be to try different USB ports. USB ports work in pairs of two ports per USB hub. This means that, if using ports on the same hub, the 5 volt power going to the ports can be stressed. If the external drives are powered through the USB port two combined can pull more power than the hub can supply. Best practice would be to use ports that are NOT next to each other.

Is this a desktop or laptop system? If a desktop try using USB ports in the back rather than the front of the case. For ages back of the case USB ports have been more reliable than front ports. I can't state for fact but I suspect that this is due to the back ports being allocated mor power than the front ports.


Hi Jay.......I used a port in the back of the desktop computer like you said and that allowed both external usb hard drives to be open at the same time and solved all my problems. Thanks so much for your help.


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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2022 10:00 pm 
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You are quite welcome. :)

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