Strange external drive non-recognition

There have been quite a number of posts about such issues, but never seen this one before.
After I bought my USB external drive (a 1TB Toshiba Stor-E), my laptop recognized it fine, copied files onto it, etc. Then I plugged it into my other laptop, recognized it, used it. Since then, however, my first laptop won't recognize it. It won't show up under MyComputer, under Device Manager, not even under Disk Management.
Troubleshooting steps tried: tried to get it recognized with 'add new hardware', under Device Manager 'look for hardware changes', ticked 'view hidden devices', removed USB hubs and let Windows re-recognize them, installed Windows 7 on laptop (previously it had XP), ran drivercleanup I found in one of the threads, looked for lower- and upperfilters in registry, nada.
This morning I formatted the entire internal hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP just for kicks... nada. It still won't recognize it, while it is working fine with my second laptop.
The computers that recognize the drive both have XP on them.
Any ideas?
 
I don't know if I have the answer but let me ask, when you removed the external hard drive from the laptops, did you stop it first or did you just unplug it?
 
good question. honestly, i cant remember. i may have done it either way. but since windows has been reinstalled twice and the drive works fine on other computers, i am guessing it is too late now :)
also, forgot to add, this laptop sees and uses another usb external drive fine.
 
I don't know if I have the answer but let me ask, when you removed the external hard drive from the laptops, did you stop it first or did you just unplug it?

apologies, failed to notice the plural of laptops. let me clarify. i cant remember what i did when i disconnected the external drive from the first laptop, but since then i have always clicked on 'eject device' on all the computers i use to avoid data loss.
 
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