External drive does not show in My Computer

[SteveH]

Hello

A friend of mine has a Western Digital external hard drive on her XP
computer which stores a lot of her photos. From what I can gather, she used
to be able to access the photos until a virus scan was done on her computer.
Now she can't see the external drive and has lost access to her photos.

If I click on My Computer the external hard drive does not appear, but it is
listed in Device Manager and Windows says that she has the latest drivers.

What would be the best way for her to access her photos and for her to be
able to see the drive in My Computer?

Many thanks.

Steve

 

[Leonard Grey]

Your post lacks sufficient detail to even hazard a guess. Your friend
should disconnect her external hard drive from her computer and not
attach it again until whatever problem she has on her computer is
solved. Then she may re-attach the external hard drive and scan it for
/all types/ of malware.

If she thinks that a virus scan damaged her computer she should contact
her anti-virus software's technical support.

 

[JS]

Assuming that there where no viruses found on her PC.
Try connecting it to another PC and see if the files
can be accessed.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Hello

A friend of mine has a Western Digital external hard drive on her XP
computer which stores a lot of her photos. From what I can gather, she used
to be able to access the photos until a virus scan was done on her computer.
Now she can't see the external drive and has lost access to her photos.

If I click on My Computer the external hard drive does not appear, but it is
listed in Device Manager and Windows says that she has the latest drivers.

What would be the best way for her to access her photos and for her to be
able to see the drive in My Computer?

If everything else fails and it's about photo files only,
then a software like PCI file recovery might help.
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/download.htm?language=1


Uwe

 

[Anna]

Hello

A friend of mine has a Western Digital external hard drive on her XP
computer which stores a lot of her photos. From what I can gather, she
used
to be able to access the photos until a virus scan was done on her
computer.
Now she can't see the external drive and has lost access to her photos.

If I click on My Computer the external hard drive does not appear, but it
is
listed in Device Manager and Windows says that she has the latest drivers.

What would be the best way for her to access her photos and for her to be
able to see the drive in My Computer?

Many thanks.

Steve

Steve:
We'll assume there are no other problems with your friend's PC other than
the problem you've raised, i.e., the system boots without incident and
properly functions notwithstanding the USB external HDD problem. That's
right, isn't it?

Have you tried accessing Disk Management? Is there any listing there re the
USBEHD? If so, has a drive letter been assigned and if not, can you assign
one? Or is there no listing of the USBEHD?

As "JS" has suggested try connecting the USBEHD to another computer. If the
data can be accessed through that means be sure to copy the data to a CD or
DVD.

If still no go, is it possible to remove the HDD from the USB enclosure. I
assume it's a commercial unit so it may be difficult, if not impossible
(without damaging the enclosure) to remove the HDD from the enclosure.
Anyway, if you can remove the HDD, install it in the PC as a secondary HDD
and see if you can access its contents that way. Naturally I'm assuming
you're working with a desktop machine. The obvious purpose of the foregoing
is to determine whether it's the enclosure itself (and not the HDD) that's
causing the problem.

If still no go, it's hard to tell exactly what's causing the problem. Could
be a defective HDD or some corruption due to the "virus scan" that you
mentioned.

Try to test the HDD via the diagnostic utility that's generally available
from the website of the manufacturer (Western Digital) of the disk. See...
http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3

Another possibility of salvaging the data from the drive is using one or
more of the commercial "data recovery programs". There's a veritable slew of
them offered by many developers, most of whom have a trial version available
which will give one some insight as to whether the data can be recovered.
You can do a simple search on Google to locate these programs and perhaps
other responders to your query will have some recommendations.

Finally as a more-or-less last resort there's the commercial data recovery
service which as you might surmise is a *very* expensive proposition.
Anna

 

[JS]

Hi Anna,

Just your opinion on this.
It would appear that this type of USB drive problem occurs more often
than say an internal hard drive failure, any comments.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Anna]

Hi Anna,

Just your opinion on this.
It would appear that this type of USB drive problem occurs more often
than say an internal hard drive failure, any comments.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

JS:
There's no question about it based on our experience. Problems with
USB-connected devices in an XP OS environment have been plaguing us for more
years than I care to recount. Particularly USB external HDDs as well as the
ubiquitous flash (pen, thumb, etc.) drives. Relatively few problems with
USB-connected printers/scanners as compared with the previous-named devices.

These USB non-recognition problems have been vexing all of us for some time
now. Hardly a day passes where queries similar to the current one are posted
to this and other newsgroups dealing with XP issues.

We've become increasingly convinced that the relatively large number of
problems in this area involving the non-recognition of USB devices that
we've all been experiencing is an indication that there is something
seriously flawed with respect to either the USB 2.0 specifications, possibly
involving quality control issues affecting the manufacturer of these USB
devices as well as supporting components such as motherboards and other
USB-related components. Then too, we've become increasingly suspicious of
the XP OS itself as it relates to its recognition of and interaction with
these USB 2.0 devices.

We have encountered far too many unexplained problems affecting
detection/recognition of these devices and their erratic functioning not to
believe that something is seriously amiss in this area.

We continually encounter situations where a USB 2.0 device - generally
involving a flash drive or USB external hard drive, will work perfectly fine
in one machine and not in another. And, in far too many cases, we're unable
to determine why this is so since we're unable to detect any
hardware/software problem in the balking machine that would cause this
non-recognition effect.

For what it's worth we've put together a more-or-less checklist for
troubleshooting these rather common USB non-recognition problems that
(hopefully) may be of some value to users encountering this type of
problem...

1. Access Disk Management and see if the USB device is listed. If so, and
there's no drive letter assigned, see if you can assign a drive letter to
the device.
2. If the USB device is listed in Disk Management with an assigned drive
letter, right-click on its listing and select Explore from the submenu.
Hopefully, Windows Explorer will open and the device will be listed.
3. Connect the USB device *directly* to a USB port on the computer, not via
a USB hub. Try different USB ports should your computer have multiple ports.
4. Avoid using a USB extension cable.
5. Try connecting a USB device (that does not contain an auxiliary power
supply) to a USB port both before and after the boot operation.
6. Where a USB (or Firewire) external HDD is involved, access Device
Manager, highlight the Disk drives listing and click on the Action menu item
and then the "Scan for hardware changes" sub-menu item. Do the same in Disk
Management > Action > Rescan disks.
7. Again, if the problem device is a USB external HDD that is not being
recognized by the system - access the BIOS and disable the "boot from USB
device" option should that setting be present in the BIOS. Ditto for "USB
legacy support" or similar setting if present.
8. Try alternate powering on/off methods. If the USB device contains its own
power supply, try booting up with its power on, then try powering on only
*after* the system has booted to a Desktop.
9. Try a different USB cable.
10. In the USB controllers section of Device Manager, uninstall all the USB
controllers listed and reboot.
11. If the device in question is not a commercial USB external HDD but
rather one in which you installed a PATA HDD in a USB enclosure, jumper the
HDD as Master (or Single if the HDD is a Western Digital disk). A number of
users have reported that jumper configuration corrected their
non-recognition problem. In my own experience it never seems to matter how a
USB external HDD is jumpered when installed in a USB external enclosure. But
it may be worth a try.
12. If the device in question is a USB external HDD, first check out the HDD
with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility. If it checks out OK,
and you can remove the HDD from its enclosure (without voiding any
applicable warranty), do so and install the HDD as an internal HDD to
determine if there are problems with the drive.
13. If the USB device is connected to a USB 2.0 PCI card, try changing the
card's PCI slot on the motherboard.
14. Access the website of the manufacturer of the USB device to determine if
there's any firmware update or info re the problem you're experiencing or
there's any possibility that the USB enclosure itself might be defective.
15. Determine from the manufacturer of your motherboard whether there's a
BIOS upgrade affecting USB device recognition.

BTW, you may already know that the USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed) "protocol
specifications" are to be released this coming week at a USB developer
conference. According to the news USB 3.0 devices are scheduled to be
released sometime in 2009. Supposedly these devices will run at speeds >
present SATA-II HDDs (although SATA-III is supposedly "right around the
corner"). See...
http://gizmodo.com/5084086/super+speed-usb-30-formal-unveiling

Let's hope these USB 3.0 devices - especially involving HDDs/flash drives -
operate more reliability than their predecessors.
Anna

 

[JS]

Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail.
More or less confirms what I've suspected and or experienced.

I think I'll check the Vista newsgroups to see if
Vista is just as prone to this issue.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[JS]

Also you find this useful.
Sync: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897438.aspx

I use it prior to shutdown for my internal drives.
(actually run it twice and then shutdown the PC)

Have not tried Sync on external drives.
I don't use USB drives and do not want to find out the hard
way like some users have that they can not longer access
their files on a USB drive.

Despite the great prices lately, a USB drive is not the
place where I would choose to store my image backups.

If you have multiple computers and users you might consider
adding Sync to a batch file that runs as part of the shutdown
process. It's just might reduce at least some of the USB problems.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

These USB non-recognition problems have been vexing all of us for some time
now. Hardly a day passes where queries similar to the current one are posted
to this and other newsgroups dealing with XP issues.

Interesting that there have been so many problems.

I have noted an occasional problem with an external HDD of mine. My problem
has been correctable by disconnecting the HDD from the USB port; powering it
off and then on; and reconnecting.

I have also noted that CF cards, plugged into a USB 2.0 card reader, will
occasionally not display the card name in "My Computer", although will be
accessible in a normal fashion.
--ron

 

[Anna]

Also you find this useful.
Sync: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897438.aspx

I use it prior to shutdown for my internal drives.
(actually run it twice and then shutdown the PC)

Have not tried Sync on external drives.
I don't use USB drives and do not want to find out the hard
way like some users have that they can not longer access
their files on a USB drive.

Despite the great prices lately, a USB drive is not the
place where I would choose to store my image backups.

If you have multiple computers and users you might consider
adding Sync to a batch file that runs as part of the shutdown
process. It's just might reduce at least some of the USB problems.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

I might just add that with the enormous increase in SATA-based PCs (both
desktops & notebooks) over the past five years or so, we strongly recommend
(wherever possible) the use of external enclosures that provide for a
SATA-to-SATA data connection between the enclosure and the PC. (These
enclosures will nearly always be also equipped with USB connectivity).

The advantage here with desktop machines - and it's a significant advantage
in our opinion - is that through a SATA-to-SATA connection either via an
eSATA port incorporated on the motherboard (if so equipped) or with an
inexpensive SATA (or eSATA) adapter affixed to the backplane of the computer
case, the user has the advantage of very fast data transfer speeds as
compared with a USB external HDD.

And significantly, since the system will treat the external SATA HDD in that
situation as an *internal* HDD, one has the added benefit of having a
bootable device as well when using a disk-cloning program and cloning the
contents of one's "source" drive to the SATA "destination" external HDD.
This is a decided advantage over a USBEHD since that device is not bootable.

The advantages noted above can also be obtained when using a SATA-based
laptop/notebook PC. In this case the ExpressCard with one or two eSATA ports
will serve the same purpose.

As you may know from my previous posts we are strong proponents of using
removable HDDs in our desktop systems. Using that hardware arrangement (in
our view) one gets the best of all worlds with that configuration.
Anna

 

[Walt Thatcher]

I might just add that with the enormous increase in SATA-based PCs (both
desktops & notebooks) over the past five years or so, we strongly recommend
(wherever possible) the use of external enclosures that provide for a
SATA-to-SATA data connection between the enclosure and the PC. (These
enclosures will nearly always be also equipped with USB connectivity).

Who is this "we" that you often refer to??

The advantage here with desktop machines - and it's a significant advantage
in our opinion - is that through a SATA-to-SATA connection either via an
eSATA port incorporated on the motherboard (if so equipped) or with an
inexpensive SATA (or eSATA) adapter affixed to the backplane of the computer
case, the user has the advantage of very fast data transfer speeds as
compared with a USB external HDD.

And significantly, since the system will treat the external SATA HDD in that
situation as an *internal* HDD, one has the added benefit of having a
bootable device as well when using a disk-cloning program and cloning the
contents of one's "source" drive to the SATA "destination" external HDD.
This is a decided advantage over a USBEHD since that device is not bootable.

The advantages noted above can also be obtained when using a SATA-based
laptop/notebook PC. In this case the ExpressCard with one or two eSATA ports
will serve the same purpose.

As you may know from my previous posts we are strong proponents of using
removable HDDs in our desktop systems.

There's that "we" again.

 

[Folklife]

Hello

A friend of mine has a Western Digital external hard drive on her XP
computer which stores a lot of her photos. From what I can gather, she used
to be able to access the photos until a virus scan was done on her computer.
Now she can't see the external drive and has lost access to her photos.

If I click on My Computer the external hard drive does not appear, but it is
listed in Device Manager and Windows says that she has the latest drivers.

What would be the best way for her to access her photos and for her to be
able to see the drive in My Computer?

Many thanks.

Steve