External hard drive won't display in My Computer

[Pete]

I am attempting to read the contents of the hard drive from my Topfield
PVR. I have it directly connected to a USB port. When I first connected
it, it automatically identified it as a mass storage device, installed
the driver, etc. But the drive doesn't show in My Computer. Using the
Device Manager I see it is properly installed and working. Nonetheless I
uninstalled the driver and reconnected the device again with the same
results. I have the PVR drive in my external drive enclosure that I use
to regularly backup my system so I know how these things are supposed to
work. Normally the drive appears in My Computer a second after I connect
the USB lead.

I'm wondering if the PVR drive is formatted in some weird way that XP
Pro does not recognise in order to display the drive in My Computer. It
seems properly installed but I just can't see it.

I can confirm that the USB port does work and that the bandwidth is not
being exceeded.

Any ideas??

Pete.

 

[Edwin vMierlo]

can you see the drive in disk-management ?

 

[SSI]

I had a similar problem with a Maxtor external drive. You need to go to Disk
Management and assign a new drive letter for some reason.
rt click on my computer/manage/disk management. See if the drive is there.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I'm wondering if the PVR drive is formatted in some weird way that XP
Pro does not recognise in order to display the drive in My Computer. It
seems properly installed but I just can't see it.

Here are some known reasons for external drives not
shown in the Windwos Explorer:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html


Uwe