External hard drive not showing on My Computer

[JJ]

Hi, my WD USB external hard drive shows up on my XP desktop but not on my XP
laptop. It shows up in Hardware devices as working correctly. Am I missing
something simple. Any advce would be appreciated please.

TIA
JJ

 

[Mark Adams]

Hi, my WD USB external hard drive shows up on my XP desktop but not on my XP
laptop. It shows up in Hardware devices as working correctly. Am I missing
something simple. Any advce would be appreciated please.

TIA
JJ

Does it show up in Disk Management on the laptop? If it does, assign it a
drive letter, then it should show up in My Computer.

 

[JJ]

Hi Mark, I tried that and no joy. I'm pretty sure it used to show up but not
used it for a while.

 

[Ron Badour]

Has the drive been partitioned?

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

 

[JJ]

Yes Ron, both partitions show up on the Desktop as seperate drives but
neither show on the laptop.

 

[R. McCarty]

Is the drive powered by the USB bus ? - No separate power supply.
If so you may have a condition where the laptop is unable to provide
enough current ( 500 mA Maximum ) from the USB root Hub. If the
laptop has other USB devices connected try removing them and then
only plug in the external drive.

 

[JJ]

Is the drive powered by the USB bus ? - No separate power supply.
Yes Ron.

If the
laptop has other USB devices connected try removing them and then
only plug in the external drive.

Only the mouse which I've now dissed. But still no joy. Is there any way I
can use this USB powered Drive with the laptop?

 

[R. McCarty]

Possibly, it involves adding System Environment Variable
DevMgr_Show_NonPresent_Devices
Set it's value = 1
Open Device Manager, Click View - tic/check "Show Hidden
Devices". Review Disk Drives, USB and Storage Volumes. In
each category if any devices are shown grayed out ( diminished
in tone ) Right Click and choose Uninstall. After cleaning out the
phantom devices re-insert your removable drive.

 

[Ron Badour]

I am fighting a terrible cold and that's my excuse for asking such a dumb
question. I had read the thread earlier about the drive showing up on the
desktop but forgot about it when I later read the post I replied to.

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

 

[JJ]

No problemo. Now your up to speed, any thoughts on the subject?

 

[JJ]

Sorry but the first paragraph went over my head.
I've followed through on the second paragraph but there were no 'greyed out'
devices to uninstall.

 

[JJ]

No problemo. Now your up to speed, any thoughts on the subject?
Excuse the typo, I meant 'you're'...

 

[John John - MVP]

Copy and paste the text between the --------- lines below and save it as
a .bat file then run it, the batch file will automatically open your
Device Manager where you can then select the "Show hidden devices" from
the "View" Menu. At the same View menu select "Devices by connection"
to see all the devices. The light shaded devices are phantom devices.
Some of the phantoms may just be so because they aren't powered or
connected to the computer when you run the command, it's up to you to
decide which of the phantoms are really uneeded.

 

[John John - MVP]

Sorry, there is a mistake in my .bat file, the proper file is:

 

[JJ]

Hi John, that hasn't helped unfortunately. Still no show in My Computer

 

[Al Falfa]

Hi John, that hasn't helped unfortunately. Still no show in My Computer

Due to bad line-wrap, it looks as if the word 'set' is at the end of the
'....' line. Ensure the .bat file is:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

 

[Graham W]

Hi Mark, I tried that and no joy. I'm pretty sure it used to show up but not
used it for a while.

So, what's your answer? Is it showing in Disk Management or not? If
so, what drive letter(s)? What about in windows explorer?

 

[JJ]

Sorry Graham, I've been out of town for a few days. Too answer your polite
question, the external drive does show in Disk Management (H:,I but not in
My Comp nor Win Explorer.

 

[Bob I]

Get TweakUI from Microsoft downloads, and then UNhide the drive letter(s).

 

[JJ]

Good call Bob, that did the trick. Cheers buddy.

Get TweakUI from Microsoft downloads, and then UNhide the drive letter(s).