HELP!!! External Maxtor HD won't show up in My Computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter rafa3000
  • Start date Start date
R

rafa3000

Hi,

I've seen this problem in other threads but don't see any solutions
posted.

I have two Maxtor ONE Touch HD's. One is 200 and a brand new 300GB.

Both work fine when attached to the desktop (WIN XP Pro). Show up
immediately when turned on.

But on my new Dell (Win XP Media Center Ed.) They will show up in
Device Manager as working properly, but will not be assigned a drive
letter or even show up in My Computer.

Also in DOS, you cannot just go to the next drive letter to access it.

The laptop makes a ping sound when a new device is attached, it went
through all the NEW DEVICE pop ups and finally said, your new drive is
working now. But then you can't get to it.

What's going on? I tried another desktop and the same thing happens.
Installs, shows up on Device Manager, but nothing in My Computer.

Please don't suggest to reformat or repartition BOTH external drives,
since that would mean losing all the data. I know there's data on these
drives and I know they work (as of two days ago) on my machine at home.
Even if BOTH of these HD's were blank, the blank drives would show up
in Computer MANAGER where I would be allowed to format them. But they
don't. Only in Device manager and upon initial boot of the HD.

What's the point of getting external hard drives if you can't share the
data across two machines??? What happens when your main backed up
machine dies?

According to the Maxtor website, there's no special software that needs
to be installed. Windows should recognize it natively. Please help. I
need the data on these drives.

-thx!
 
Hi,

I've seen this problem in other threads but don't see any solutions
posted.

I have two Maxtor ONE Touch HD's. One is 200 and a brand new 300GB.

Both work fine when attached to the desktop (WIN XP Pro). Show up
immediately when turned on.

But on my new Dell (Win XP Media Center Ed.) They will show up in
Device Manager as working properly, but will not be assigned a drive
letter or even show up in My Computer.

Also in DOS, you cannot just go to the next drive letter to access it.

The laptop makes a ping sound when a new device is attached, it went
through all the NEW DEVICE pop ups and finally said, your new drive is
working now. But then you can't get to it.

What's going on? I tried another desktop and the same thing happens.
Installs, shows up on Device Manager, but nothing in My Computer.

Please don't suggest to reformat or repartition BOTH external drives,
since that would mean losing all the data. I know there's data on these
drives and I know they work (as of two days ago) on my machine at home.
Even if BOTH of these HD's were blank, the blank drives would show up
in Computer MANAGER where I would be allowed to format them. But they
don't. Only in Device manager and upon initial boot of the HD.

What's the point of getting external hard drives if you can't share the
data across two machines??? What happens when your main backed up
machine dies?

According to the Maxtor website, there's no special software that needs
to be installed. Windows should recognize it natively. Please help. I
need the data on these drives.

-thx!
Click to expand...
Are you using TweakUI? If so, open it and click the My Computer
tab. Make sure all the drive letters are available for assignment. HTH.
 
Hi,

I've seen this problem in other threads but don't see any solutions
posted.

I have two Maxtor ONE Touch HD's. One is 200 and a brand new 300GB.

Both work fine when attached to the desktop (WIN XP Pro). Show up
immediately when turned on.

But on my new Dell (Win XP Media Center Ed.) They will show up in
Device Manager as working properly, but will not be assigned a drive
letter or even show up in My Computer.

Also in DOS, you cannot just go to the next drive letter to access it.

The laptop makes a ping sound when a new device is attached, it went
through all the NEW DEVICE pop ups and finally said, your new drive is
working now. But then you can't get to it.

What's going on? I tried another desktop and the same thing happens.
Installs, shows up on Device Manager, but nothing in My Computer.

Please don't suggest to reformat or repartition BOTH external drives,
since that would mean losing all the data. I know there's data on these
drives and I know they work (as of two days ago) on my machine at home.
Even if BOTH of these HD's were blank, the blank drives would show up
in Computer MANAGER where I would be allowed to format them. But they
don't. Only in Device manager and upon initial boot of the HD.

What's the point of getting external hard drives if you can't share the
data across two machines??? What happens when your main backed up
machine dies?

According to the Maxtor website, there's no special software that needs
to be installed. Windows should recognize it natively. Please help. I
need the data on these drives.

-thx!
Click to expand...

Have you tried assigning a drive letter to it in Disk Management. If
you can't do that, then as the other poster said, install tweakui and
make sure the unassigned drive letters are available.

Get TweakUI from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Once installed and running, expand the My Computer | Drives section and
see what drive letters are available in the right pane. A tic mark in
the box for the drive letter means it's available.
 
I have two Maxtor ONE Touch HD's. One is 200 and a brand new 300GB.

Both work fine when attached to the desktop (WIN XP Pro). Show up
immediately when turned on.

But on my new Dell (Win XP Media Center Ed.) They will show up in
Device Manager as working properly, but will not be assigned a drive
letter or even show up in My Computer.
Click to expand...

Maybe this helps:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html
Also in DOS, you cannot just go to the next drive letter to access it.
Click to expand...

That's probably because it's NTFS formatted.


Uwe
 
Me Again,

Ok. I haven't tried TweakUI on the Laptop or the other PC.

But I finally got back home and tried the two Ext. HD's on the original
PC and they work perfectly. Install and ask for the OneTouch password
to unlock the drives.

So I know my data is fine and files are there.

Now I'll try to get the HD's to show up on "Any" PC.

Thanks for the suggestions. Will advise.
 
Frank said:
There are no USB drivers for MSDOS as a rule.
Click to expand...

No drivers required if the BIOS has support for USB drives.
So far I've never tried an USB harddrive but my FAT formatted
flash drives work fine under pure DOS without any drivers.
I know of no external USB drive that ships with NTFS.
Click to expand...

True. But if you decide to format it for any reason under
XP you have no other choice if the drive is larger than 32GB.
There are several good reasons for this.
Click to expand...

Tell Mircrosoft.


Uwe
 
SOLVED.

Spoke to Maxtor.

If you use the Password feature to "Lock" the drive...you must install
that software on every machine you try to access the HD from.

Unfortunately, I don't think they offer the software for downloading.
You have to have the CD that came with it. (Thanks Maxtor!, real
convenient)

Why not have it downloadable so you can put the unlocking applet on a
flashdrive? Why not have the Maxtor show up at least as a "LOCKED
Drive" instead of no warning, or sign?

Thanks to everyone who responded.

-R
 
CitiizenRane said:
Why not have it downloadable so you can put the unlocking applet on a
flashdrive? Why not have the Maxtor show up at least as a "LOCKED
Drive" instead of no warning, or sign?
Click to expand...

I'm betting that the program isn't very large at all. If your flash drive
is large enough, just copy and paste all the files on the CD onto your flash
drive. You'll be able to take the software with you wherever you go, and
install as needed.
 
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