Re: External HD

Fred Bohm wrote:
> -- I bought an external HD on Ebay. It worked perfectly when I
> plugged it in. When I was done playing around with it I decided to
> format it and get rid of all the junk I had stored on it. I went to
> my computer and did a right click on the drive and did a format. Now
> I can not find it again. I can find it in device manager and it says
> it is working. It does not show up in my computer anymore.
> Originally it was drive H. I have tried to reload the drivers, but
> nothing works.
>
> I am running XP pro. The drive is a Platinum 250GB 5400rpm. ATA/133
> HDD. Other numbers on the drive are: E-H011-02-3880 3.5 series
> ER: +5v 670ma +12v 960ma. It is in a Sapphire Octopus link USB
> 2.0-3.5" external enclosure.

Shenan Stanley wrote:
> First off, a USB hard drive that needs drivers.. Weird.
> Secondly - if you see it in Device Manager - have you tried just
> giving it a driver letter there?

a1hdbiker wrote:
> I had same problem. Thank you Mr. Stanley.
> I do have another question for you and that is
> "Why doesn't the new drive show up in 'My Computer'"?
> How do you get it to show up?

Do you see it in Disk Management?
Have you given it a drive letter?

Although it should technically just "get one", it may not be able to for
various reasons. One being that Windows is very particular with external
USB devices and will sometimes not give them letters if you already have use
of C, D, E, F and G.. It's very random and sometimes works - but something
just isn't right there. I have had to - in the past - change peoples CD
drive letters to "Y" and "Z" and reboot before hooking the USB drive into
the machine to grab "E" or "F". All this can be done in the Disk Manager..

To start Disk Management:
1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window
appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To
customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes
of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the
view that you want to use.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: External HD
    ... "Shenan Stanley" wrote: ... a USB hard drive that needs drivers.. ... > Do you see it in Disk Management? ... The Disk Management window ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: External HD
    ... "Shenan Stanley" wrote: ... a USB hard drive that needs drivers.. ... > Do you see it in Disk Management? ... The Disk Management window ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: formatting error
    ... "How to use Disk Management ... Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group. ... The Disk Management window ... and format it from within there. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Hard Drive Issue
    ... You do mean Disk Management, ... Tell us about existing partitions on that HDD: How many partitions and how large? ... The terms sound synonymous to me, but DM seems to indicate that there is a difference - although I haven't found the difference explained in the Help file. ... Perhaps something in this page will hold the clue to your "can't format" problem. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: Prepare new drive without using Disk Management
    ... I need to partition and format the drive. ... difficulty with larger discs over 300GB, ... It's apparent that you're familiar with XP's Disk Management utility ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)