External Drive (USB) Not Recognized

W

WSR

I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.

While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system", when
I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external drive.

Any recommendations before I get a new drive?

Thanks

(B^>)-]=[
 
J

Jose

I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.

While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system", when
I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external drive.

Any recommendations before I get a new drive?

Thanks

(B^>)-]=[

Is it a LaCie Quadra or the Iomega Presige.
 
W

WSR

It is a Western Digital and I have rebooted with it attached.

Not sure why the System tray recognizes it but the computer does not...


Unknown said:
Did you reboot with the new drive attached?
WSR said:
I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.

While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system",
when I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external
drive.

Any recommendations before I get a new drive?

Thanks

(B^>)-]=[
 
L

LVTravel

WSR said:
It is a Western Digital and I have rebooted with it attached.

Not sure why the System tray recognizes it but the computer does not...


Unknown said:
Did you reboot with the new drive attached?
WSR said:
I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.

While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system",
when I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external
drive.

Any recommendations before I get a new drive?

Thanks

(B^>)-]=[

Right click on My Computer, Left click on Manage, Disk Management. In the
bottom right of the window that opens you should see all drives attached to
your computer. Disk 0 is normally the computer's Drive C and any other
partitions on it and it should have that or those drive letter/s there.

CD-ROM 0 will probably be the CD/DVD drive if one is attached and
functional.

Any other drives attached even without a drive letter will be showing. Do
you see any drive listed that may be your USB drive? Right click on the
Disk X (where X is it's number) and then left click on Properties to
identify the drive. Under the General tab it will show the drive type and
USB device.

Once found, if no drive letter is showing it may not have been formatted.
Right click on the right hand area and then click Format or Initialize
(depending on what is offered.) Once the drive has been formatted it should
be recognized by the system and assigned a drive letter. If formatting,
chose NTFS as the style of format (unless this drive will be used on an
older Win 9X type of computer as NTFS is more reliable and fault tolerant.


Another common issue (and you don't mention, but I don't believe this is
your issue) is that when hooked to a network with mapped drives on the
computer, the Disk Management system does not seem to recognize that the
drives are mapped and they "hide" the USB drives that may share the same
drive letter. The fix for that would be to map the network drive letters
higher in the alphabet. I start at Z and work backward for all my mapped
drives.

Hope this helps, let us know.
 
J

Jose

It is a Western Digital and I have rebooted with it attached.

Not sure why the System tray recognizes it but the computer does not...




Did you reboot with the new drive attached?
WSR said:
I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.
While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system",
when I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external
drive.
Any recommendations before I get a new drive?
Thanks
(B^>)-]=[

Ah-ha. Is it a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition 2TB?

Is the drive brand new, if not to you knowledge has it ever worked
and are you able to try it in another computer?
 
W

WSR

Thanks so much for your advice.

Unfortunately no go. No external drive recognized just the C: and the CD/DVD
drive.

My external drive I believe has gone to back-up heaven.

Thanks again for you specific advice.

(B^<)-]=[

LVTravel said:
WSR said:
It is a Western Digital and I have rebooted with it attached.

Not sure why the System tray recognizes it but the computer does not...


Unknown said:
Did you reboot with the new drive attached?
I have XP SP3 and have attached an external drive via a USB cord.

While the system tray shows "New Device has been added to your system",
when I go to My Computer all that I see is the C:\ drive. No external
drive.

Any recommendations before I get a new drive?

Thanks

(B^>)-]=[

Right click on My Computer, Left click on Manage, Disk Management. In the
bottom right of the window that opens you should see all drives attached
to your computer. Disk 0 is normally the computer's Drive C and any other
partitions on it and it should have that or those drive letter/s there.

CD-ROM 0 will probably be the CD/DVD drive if one is attached and
functional.

Any other drives attached even without a drive letter will be showing. Do
you see any drive listed that may be your USB drive? Right click on the
Disk X (where X is it's number) and then left click on Properties to
identify the drive. Under the General tab it will show the drive type and
USB device.

Once found, if no drive letter is showing it may not have been formatted.
Right click on the right hand area and then click Format or Initialize
(depending on what is offered.) Once the drive has been formatted it
should be recognized by the system and assigned a drive letter. If
formatting, chose NTFS as the style of format (unless this drive will be
used on an older Win 9X type of computer as NTFS is more reliable and
fault tolerant.


Another common issue (and you don't mention, but I don't believe this is
your issue) is that when hooked to a network with mapped drives on the
computer, the Disk Management system does not seem to recognize that the
drives are mapped and they "hide" the USB drives that may share the same
drive letter. The fix for that would be to map the network drive letters
higher in the alphabet. I start at Z and work backward for all my mapped
drives.

Hope this helps, let us know.
 

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