Troubleshooting my own PC - Missing External HDD drive

Just today I had trouble booting up my PC and it was stuck at P.O.S.T for a looong time.  Then went into start-up repair which Windows 7 informs me that it cannot repair my computer after 1 hour of scanning/attempt to repair.

I couldn't remember what I did next but somehow later the computer worked!  Everything was back to normal, except booting up took exceptionally long.  It used to take 30 seconds to a minute, now its at least 5 minutes to boot up.  But everything works so far...

Worried my computer is about to fail... AGAIN!  I decided to back-up my documents and to my horror my portable HDD is missing or appeared not to be working.  After scouring the web and attempting to reboot.

The error found in USB Root Hub was Error code 10.  Searching the web there were multiple solutions out there.  Most suggest doing something to your registry, having anti spyware or rebooting.

Rebooting, I tried and did not work.  Already had anti spyware so it didn't work either.  The only thing I didn't do was to do a registry clean-up.  So I decided to try something else, something far simpler and to my surprise it worked!  Heres what I did to help myself.

1. Click Window button (at bottom left hand corner)
2. Click Control Panel
3. Click Hard & Sound
4. Under Device & Printers, Click Device Manager
5. See above screenshot, expand on Universal Serial Bus controllers
6. Remove External HDD from computer, aka unplug the USB from the PC.
7. Find the offending USB Root Hub (it will normally have a "!" mark.
8. Right Click and select Uninstall
9. Plug in the USB that connects the External HDD back into the PC
10.  Computer will auto-detect new devices
End:  At this point the External HDD is once again accessible!


WARNING
*This is not meant to be a solution for others having the same trouble and I will not be held responsible for any damage or error your computer sustains while attempting this.  This merely catalogs what works for me.  Also because I have a memory of a goldfish, its easier for me to have a reference point on a blog I visit regularly than write it on a notebook that will end up missing in a few months time*