External drive not detected

[Paul B.]

I recently purchased an external hard drive, IOGear ION
250GB, Model No. GHD135C250. My Toshiba Satellite
(laptop) 1905-S301 running XP Home will not detect it. I
plug it in, and nothing happens. I ran through all of the
USB hardware troubleshooting steps for XP.

The USB 1.1 port works, as evidenced by the computer
detecting other devices and by the device manager not
finding any problems with the BUS or the device.

I also tried plugging it in through my ILink port by using
a Firewire-ILink plug--to no avail.

I called IOGear, and they're not much help. They said the
drive was probably defective--I returned it, received a
new one, and the new one doesn't work either.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(IOGear does not have any drivers for XP for this drive,
only 98SE, which will not install on XP)

Paul

 

[Guest]

Go back to the store: bu an external drive case [one with all the Drivers for the external drive - they'll be USB and / or firewire drivers] and a separate Hard Drive.

Take 5 minutes, plug in the hard drive and plug it into your Toshiba at the store.

If it doesn't work then try another case until one works.

It should not be a difficult process, but buying separate case and HDD will save you oney.

I build these for my clients as a backup solution and they cost me <US $ 160 using 120Gb HDDs.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

The reason there are no XP drivers is because XP is supposed to natively
support this drive. My question is did you install Windows XP with
Service Pack 1 (or have Service Pack 1 installed?). Service Pack 1
enabled the use of harddrives over 137GB (by enabling 48bit LBA
support). You shouldn't have to partition the drive to get it to work,
though I would suggest splitting it in at least two

Two major things I would suggest. First, make sure that your latest
chipset drivers are installed for proper USB drivers/support. Second,
when the harddrive is connected, right click on My Computer, click
Manage, and click on Disk Management. Does it at least show up in there?

Lastly, try using the harddrive on someone else's computer and see if it
works over there.

Nathan McNulty

So there's no way to do this with my current drive? Someone suggested that the problem might be that my computer might have problems detecting a drive of this size, and to partition it with Partition Magic. The problem is that I already have Partition Commander, which doesn't recognize the drive's existance. So I have some doubts about the success of Partition Magic.

Thanks!

Paul

:

Go back to the store: bu an external drive case [one with all the Drivers for the external drive - they'll be USB and / or firewire drivers] and a separate Hard Drive.

Take 5 minutes, plug in the hard drive and plug it into your Toshiba at the store.

If it doesn't work then try another case until one works.

It should not be a difficult process, but buying separate case and HDD will save you oney.

I build these for my clients as a backup solution and they cost me <US $ 160 using 120Gb HDDs.

:

I recently purchased an external hard drive, IOGear ION
250GB, Model No. GHD135C250. My Toshiba Satellite
(laptop) 1905-S301 running XP Home will not detect it. I
plug it in, and nothing happens. I ran through all of the
USB hardware troubleshooting steps for XP.

The USB 1.1 port works, as evidenced by the computer
detecting other devices and by the device manager not
finding any problems with the BUS or the device.

I also tried plugging it in through my ILink port by using
a Firewire-ILink plug--to no avail.

I called IOGear, and they're not much help. They said the
drive was probably defective--I returned it, received a
new one, and the new one doesn't work either.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(IOGear does not have any drivers for XP for this drive,
only 98SE, which will not install on XP)

Paul

 

[Art]

So there's no way to do this with my current drive? Someone suggested

that the problem might be that my computer might have problems detecting a
drive of this size, and to partition it with Partition Magic. The problem
is that I already have Partition Commander, which doesn't recognize the
drive's existance. So I have some doubts about the success of Partition
Magic.

Thanks!

Paul

Paul:

My comments pertain to the USB connectivity of the IOGEAR external hard
drive. I've had virtually no experience using Firewire.

1. I assume you've installed SP1 as well as all MS critical updates..
2. Ensure that the on-off switch on the external drive is ON during the time
it's connected to the computer. I mention this because more than one user
has had a problem with these devices because he or she didn't power up their
external drive while it was connected to their computer.
3. Your USB connection is plugged directly into your laptop's USB port and
not into a USB hub. There's been more than one case where an external hard
drive was inoperable when connected through a hub.
4. Ordinarily, no drivers are needed in XP when using a USB external drive,
however, when computers that use proprietary equipment are involved, such as
your Toshiba laptop, should you run into a problem it's always wise to
contact the manufacturer to ascertain whether any special drivers and/or
firmware may be necessary.
5. When you say "... XP Home will not detect it. I plug it in, and nothing
happens". You mean by this that the external drive is not shown in My
Computer/Windows Explorer and that you can't access it in order to copy
files from your fixed internal drive to the external drive -- is that
correct?
6. Access XP's Disk Management utility -- Start | Control Panel |
Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management. Is there any
reference to your EHD displayed here? If so, describe in detail.
7. After (hopefully!) you get your IOGEAR EHD up & running, consider the
possibility of upgrading your Toshiba laptop from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0. The
speed differential (in favor of USB 2.0, of course) is enormous and you will
never regret having that capability. But I don't know if it's economically
feasible to do so, or whether it's even a viable option with your Toshiba
laptop. Check with Toshiba.

Art

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Only other thing you could try is installing Windows Service Pack 2. It
is still in Beta, but it is pretty stable. That is available through
Windows Update or online. Here is a link:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx

Nathan McNulty

I just updated the chipset--no dice, it still doesn't show up under Management. I also went through and turned on all of the services that were off. Still nothing.
I did install Service Pack 1, and have been good about updating with all of the critical updates.

I'm going to try to test it out on another computer tonight.

Thanks for the suggestions, any other ideas?

:

The reason there are no XP drivers is because XP is supposed to natively
support this drive. My question is did you install Windows XP with
Service Pack 1 (or have Service Pack 1 installed?). Service Pack 1
enabled the use of harddrives over 137GB (by enabling 48bit LBA
support). You shouldn't have to partition the drive to get it to work,
though I would suggest splitting it in at least two

Two major things I would suggest. First, make sure that your latest
chipset drivers are installed for proper USB drivers/support. Second,
when the harddrive is connected, right click on My Computer, click
Manage, and click on Disk Management. Does it at least show up in there?

Lastly, try using the harddrive on someone else's computer and see if it
works over there.

Nathan McNulty

So there's no way to do this with my current drive? Someone suggested that the problem might be that my computer might have problems detecting a drive of this size, and to partition it with Partition Magic. The problem is that I already have Partition Commander, which doesn't recognize the drive's existance. So I have some doubts about the success of Partition Magic.

Thanks!

Paul

:



Go back to the store: bu an external drive case [one with all the Drivers for the external drive - they'll be USB and / or firewire drivers] and a separate Hard Drive.

Take 5 minutes, plug in the hard drive and plug it into your Toshiba at the store.

If it doesn't work then try another case until one works.

It should not be a difficult process, but buying separate case and HDD will save you oney.

I build these for my clients as a backup solution and they cost me <US $ 160 using 120Gb HDDs.

:



I recently purchased an external hard drive, IOGear ION
250GB, Model No. GHD135C250. My Toshiba Satellite
(laptop) 1905-S301 running XP Home will not detect it. I
plug it in, and nothing happens. I ran through all of the
USB hardware troubleshooting steps for XP.

The USB 1.1 port works, as evidenced by the computer
detecting other devices and by the device manager not
finding any problems with the BUS or the device.

I also tried plugging it in through my ILink port by using
a Firewire-ILink plug--to no avail.

I called IOGear, and they're not much help. They said the
drive was probably defective--I returned it, received a
new one, and the new one doesn't work either.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(IOGear does not have any drivers for XP for this drive,
only 98SE, which will not install on XP)

Paul