Computer wont recognize hard drive

[KB41]

Computer cannot see externa/ USB hd but can see thumb drive in same socket. Checked hd on a windows 10 pc and it worked fine. Tries another hard drive same results.

[Bill_To]

Greetings @KB41 

Welcome back to the Forum.

You seem to be, from my perspective, facing an unsolvable paradox.

- Your Windows 11 PC will not read an external USB HDD when it is connected to a specific USB port. Have you tried all USB ports on the W11 PC?

- But your Windows 11 PC will read a USB flash drive when it is connected to the same USB port.

- And, the same USB HDD works fine on a different W10 PC.

- Are the USB HDDs data drives? W11 could flag the USB drives if the drives contain unsigned boot loader code.

W10 and W11 are essentially similar. I don't don't see an operating system difference at play in your situation.

I am not sure what "Tries another hard drive same results" means.

Are you stating you see the same results when you try a different USB HDD on both PCs? So it's a no go using a second USB HDD on your W11 PC but this USB HDD works on the W10 PC.

I've never seen anything like this in decades of computing.

I have no idea how to solve this paradox.

This is a stretch and I am fishing. But is the W11 PC using Device Encryption (BitLocker Lite)? I don't use BitLocker. BitLocker may cause all kinds of weird stuff.

So I don't know what's happening and I can't think of any other reason why the W11 PC is doing weird USB stuff when only connecting a USB HDD. And this USB HDD works fine when connected to a different PC.

Regards