How Many Harddrives Can Be Connected To My Pc

Hello,
just wondering if there is a limit on how many harddrives can be connected to my pc externally that is... I know about inside the pc, just because you have 4 places doesnt mean you can actually have 4 drives... first the motherboard and how many sata ports it has and then if the psu you have is powerful enough...
My interest is via a usb port. I have 2 usb ports with their own power supply - so they get power from an electrical socket and NOT from the motherboard. One has 10 ports and the other one has 7.
Up to recently I had 4 external harddrives connected and 2 dockingstations with each 2 (internal) drives installed - so 8 drives all together. And no problems there until I got a third dockingstation. Now when all are plugged in still only 8 show up! The Port with the external harddrives are on one and the stockingstations are all on the other port and each port has its own on/off switch on both usb ports...
Now I can disconnect one, then one of the 2 that didn't appear, appears then.
I have Win 10 pro 64 bit
So here is my questions: IS there a limit? If so, can one without having all these drives find it out? And why would there be a limit? OR is it the size of all together a factor?
I have 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB drives but only use at the moment the 1tb and 2tb

 

In theory, Windows can support up to 26 "drives" (not necessarily hard drives). It is 26 because there are 26 letters in the English alphabet.

That said, A and B are reserved for floppy interfaces, so really just 24 drives - assuming 1 partition per drive since each usable partition will use a drive letter.

However, your motherboard may place additional limits so I don't for your specific computer.

 

Are you plugging these HDDs into the same USB hub?

 

Yes, i gathered that with 24 (without A and B) but in theroy since I've noticed you dont have to assign a letter to a drive that isn't inside the pc its way more than one thinks that way.

Like I wrote the dockingstations are in one hub and the external harddrives are in the other hub.

 

Have you looked in disk management for those other drives? Sometimes you can go in there and assign a letter when Windows won't.
Other thing, do you have a USB card reader?
I have 2 internal drives, one external and an 8 bay USB case, they seem to work fine all together.

 

I think we're not talking about the same thing here... I have 3 disks in my pc but were not talking about those, I'm talking about the 10 outside my pc that are plugged in via a usb or a dockingstation. All ten disks have already been assigned a letter and have stuff on them. individually they all work when turned on but when I turn on all 10 only 8 show up even in disk management.
No, do not have a card reader.. Just a standard usb hub that uses power from a plug and not the motherboard.

 

Every disk gets a letter, no matter internal or external. When the letters are assigned the drives do not own that letter, the letters can be assigned to another drive.

. So is it only the drives in the new docking station that are missing? Tried another port on the hub? Sometimes ports do go bad. Does Windows make a sound when you re-plug the missing docking station? USB should support, what like 127 devices? I forget, but more than you have plugged in there. Any errors in device manager?

Just for reference: https://askleo.com/hard-drive-not-showing/

 

no, they all work... doesn't matter what order i turn them on. one by one the show up apart from the last two... and it's always different, it's always the last two to pop up on the pc or in this case not pop up. The ports themselfs work, that I've already tried. No sounds. No errors.
Maybe my pc only supports so many. Thats why I asked the question...
First 8 to show up are shown the other 2 aren't seen even in disk management.. only when I disconnect one that is shown then one of the "missing" disks is visibly... its not vital or anything... I was just wondering if theres a limit

 

Unplug the docks and drives, and run this https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/drivecleanup.html Reboot and try reconnecting.

 

omg, that worked!!! All 10 are showing up now... I did have to redo the letter assigning because in explorer they weren't showing up but in disk management there they were so I "renamed" them to what they were and all 10 are still there... was it something I did? Well, not the fix I mean but when it didn't work? Is there something I should watch out for in future or is it something that happens no matter what?
Well, lets see if they all work tomorrow.