NOT RECOGNISING THE PORTABLE HARD DRIVE

[Guest]

Hi,

I have got a portable hard disk..which is 40GB in size.. the problem is my
system is not detecting the device...

I have installed windows XP, with SP2.

The USB ports are working fine with PEN DRIVES n other devices..however its
not detecting this HARD DRIVE although the HARD DRIVE was/is working in other
systems...!

Plz help me out..

THANK YOU!

 

[Don Schmidt]

Do you have USB 2.0 on your computer?

If you don't have USB 2.0 you can add a USB 2.0 expansion card to your
computer. I'd recommend a four or five port card. They go for about $30.

 

[LVTravel]

Sometime when a drive is plugged in the system will attempt to assign a
drive to the new device a letter that is already assigned to another device
or to a mapped network drive. When you open Windows Explorer, what are your
drive letters that show?

If you have A: (Floppy), Cmain system drive), and D (CD/DVD drive) this
probably would not be your situation but you can try the below check anyhow
on the D: drive.

Any other drives (D: to Z try to change the drive letter. Right click on
My Computer. Left click on Manage, Disk Management. In the Window that
appears it will have 3 panes. In the bottom right pane, find any drive
above C: and right click on the drive description. A window will appear
with the words "Change drive letter and paths". Click on that and then
click Change. Use the dropdown letter box to change the letter of the drive
to a higher letter that was unused when you looked in Windows Explorer. Ok
out.

Close out of all programs and then plug in the HDD again. Open Windows
Explorer again and see if the drive letter appears. If it appears, you can
then either leave the letter the same or change the HDD's letter to an
unused letter and change the original device (that you had just changed to
free the drive letter) back to it's original letter.

You must plug the drive into the same USB port each time or you stand the
chance of the same thing happening again when it attempts to install the
device and assign it a drive letter..

There may be others with other suggestions that will also work.

Hope this helps, please let us know.

 

[LVTravel]

Don, USB 2.0 probably won't make any difference. Most devices (and I
haven't found a portable HDD yet that aren't), new and old, are backward
compatible to USB 1.1. The only reason to have USB 2.0 is to increase the
throughput speed of the device.

 

[Don Schmidt]

Thanks for the correction. I misread my daughter's Western Digital "Book"
external hard drive manual.

 

[LVTravel]

That's why we are all here. To learn from and help others.

 

[Guest]

Thank you all.!
But doing all.. still the device is not been shown under WINDOWS EXPLORER..!


I would like to give a brief history of my PC which i feel would assist u in
helping me.

My PC is a year old..n last week i found tht it has been affected by
virus..after a virus scan, i found tht is has affected few dll files in
system32..n automatically my antivirus software removed(deleted) few
important dll files..consequently i...
1.Coud not change the system time..(it said the file ur tryin gto access is
removed or moved into different location)
2.Could not open the Regedit...(it said the file you are tryin gto access is
removed or moved into different location)
3..
n things like tht..
So i thought i should re-install the OS.. But i did not re-install a fresh
copy..instead i used the UPGRADE option in it..!
After doing so everything seemed fine....i could change time..open
regedit..n all looked going well...!
And for the information... before Upgrading, i have seen the description
something like "Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Controller..." under
Enhanced Controllers..!
But Now ITS MISSING..!

Whats its showing now is..
I have an option "SERIAL BUS CONTROLLERS" in DEVICE MANAGER..
under this i have..
Thats it..!
Before i had something like.. "Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced
Controller...". with port number n all..!

please let me know how to get back to my old state.. i mean..how can i make
the description appearring in there..?.. what does it mean in my case.. why
is it not showing now?
Hope this would assit u in helping me..!
Thank you..!

 

[LVTravel]

After you did the inplace upgrade of XP did you reinstall the motherboard
drivers? While it doesn't always happen that the MB drivers get dumped or
damaged, you should download and reinstall all drivers after an inplace
upgrade to make sure that the drivers didn't get replaced when you did the
upgrade.

Go to the computer manufacturer's website and find your model. Go to the
driver's/software page of the site and find your drivers.

And, of course, you have totally eradicated the virus by using appropriate
software. Run more than one antivirus scanning program to verify that all
has been removed.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ -
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/ -
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner are a few of the available free
scanners.

 

[OnlyMe]

does the HDD need to be partitioned and formatted in computer managment
first ?????????????

 

[bojimbo26]

does the HDD need to be partitioned and formatted in computer managment
first ?????????????

Google ?

 

[Guest]

Hey. I'm having this trouble too- I went along to PC world with the Missus
and bought the new 250Gb Passport WD drive for her to go with her new Mac,
and bought myself one while I was at it, as they were very well priced.

Problem is, neither USB drive is recognised by her PC. They both work fine
on the Mac's though, and they're specially formatted by Fat32 so that they're
compatible with both Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS 10.5 etc. but as soon as I
plug either of them into her PC (which is admittedly USB 1.1) they're not
recognised, and as the drivers are on them, they can't install themselves.
I've been back and forward through all the support stuff on the WD site, but
there isn't an answer there- the drive should self install on windows based
PCs via a USB 2.0 or 1.1 interface, and unfortunately I cannot find a driver
anywhere that will do it for me.

Pants is what I say!

Anyone else know anything we can try?

Thanks,

Jakko

 

[Pete Stavrakoglou]

Hi,

I have got a portable hard disk..which is 40GB in size.. the problem is my
system is not detecting the device...

I have installed windows XP, with SP2.

The USB ports are working fine with PEN DRIVES n other devices..however
its
not detecting this HARD DRIVE although the HARD DRIVE was/is working in
other
systems...!

Plz help me out..

THANK YOU!

A little late in joining this thread but here's my two cents: due to
adequate power from the USB port, some portable drives, like the Maxtor
mini-drive I have, require that the drive be connected to two USB ports in
order to draw enough power.

 

[chk3]

I'm having the same problem of recognition while it worked for six months now
not. How do you connect to two USB ports?

 

[Pete Stavrakoglou]

The USB cable that came with my Maxtor drive has two male connections on the
end to connect to the computer.