External Hard Drive not showing in My Computer

[Guest]

Hi Guys,

I have just connected and installed a driver for a new Western Digital
External Hard Drive.

It all seems to be functioning properly, there are not error messages in the
device manager, however the drive does not appear in "MY COMPUTER". I've even
downlaoded a dignostics program from WD and it can read the drive, however I
cannot explore it.

Can anyone help?
Cheers,
Jane

 

[DL]

And what does Disk Management show?
The drive has to be partitioned/formated before it is visible to My Computer

 

[Guest]

Thanks DL

I did have this drive connected to an Apple Airport & was able to access it
through that no problems, I've even transferred files onto it. My problem is
occurring because now I have plugged it directly into a USB drive on my
computer. If I reformat it, I will lose data on it. Could it be something to
do with the airport?

I've jut gone into Disk Management and it lists the hard drive along with
the others already on my computer. Although it is displaying that the memory
is 100% free and I know I have at least 50GB of data on there. Also the "File
System" is blank while the other three have FAT FAT32 & NTFS.

Any ideas?

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I have just connected and installed a driver for a new Western Digital
External Hard Drive.

It all seems to be functioning properly, there are not error messages in the
device manager, however the drive does not appear in "MY COMPUTER". I've even
downlaoded a dignostics program from WD and it can read the drive, however I
cannot explore it.

Can anyone help?

Is that drive partitioned and formatted?

 

[Anna]

And what does Disk Management show?
The drive has to be partitioned/formated before it is visible to My
Computer

Jane:
As DL points out, the USB external HDD must be partitioned/formatted before
the system will recognize it for purposes of accessing data, etc. However,
I'm assuming that this is a commercial (WD) USB external HDD that you
purchased, not just a USB external enclosure that you purchased and then
installed a WD HDD. If that is so the drive has been partitioned/formatted
at the factory.

I'm not sure I understand your comment that you "installed a driver" for the
USB external HDD. Ordinarily no driver is necessary to be installed for this
type of device in an XP environment. The system should recognize it without
any need for an auxiliary driver. It should truly be "plug & play".

Do this...

Click on Start > right-click My Computer > Manage > Computer Management >
Disk Management.

Is the USB device listed there? Does it have a drive letter assigned to it?
If it's listed but does not have a drive letter assigned to it, can you
assign a drive letter by right-clicking on the device's listing (assuming
the device is even listed in DM)?

But I have the feeling the device will not be listed in DM.

Should that be so, try this...

Boot your machine *without* connecting/powering on the USBEHD. After you
boot to your Desktop, then connect & power-on the external drive. See if the
system recognizes it then.

If there are still problems, try another USB port on your PC assuming you
have more than one. Ensure that the device is *directly* connected to a USB
port on your PC and not through any USB hub.

If still problems, is there any chance you can gain access to another PC and
try out the USBEHD on that machine?
Anna

 

[Paul Randall]

Hi Guys,

I have just connected and installed a driver for a new Western Digital
External Hard Drive.

It all seems to be functioning properly, there are not error messages in
the
device manager, however the drive does not appear in "MY COMPUTER". I've
even
downlaoded a dignostics program from WD and it can read the drive, however
I
cannot explore it.

Can anyone help?
Cheers,
Jane

Apple Airport probably did not partition and format the drive in a
PC-compatible way. Try using it with a Mac computer. If you partition it
with a PC, you will likely lose your data.

-Paul Randall

 

[Panic]

Can you reconnect the drive to the Apple Airport and copy the files to disks
or CDs? If so, then you can format it and still have the files that were on
it.

 

[DL]

It will be to do with incompatibilities between Apple & MS file systems.
You need to connect to an Apple & backup your Data.
Before partitioning & formatting the drive in MS windows (you will lose all
data on the drive)