My external hard drive no longer appears in explorer or my computer

[Porte Rouge]

I am running WinXP Pro SP3. I have a Lacie Big disk 1Tb connected by
1394 cable to my
Dell Dimension 9150. Its been working fine, now it I can't find it to
move files to. I restarted the computer, jiggled the fire wire, turned
the drive off and on again, and nothing. I also tried adding hardware
and that didn't work either. I only found one KB article about "safely
removing" a drive affects other drives but that was fixed by SP3
supposedly. I'm out of ideas.


Porte

 

[Rich Barry]

Does it show up in Device Manager?? If yes, disconnect the disk
physically and remove the entry from DM. Just choose Uninstall.
Restart the computer and shutdown. Reconnect the drive and let WinXP
reinstall it.

 

[John Wunderlich]

m:

I am running WinXP Pro SP3. I have a Lacie Big disk 1Tb connected
by 1394 cable to my
Dell Dimension 9150. Its been working fine, now it I can't find it
to move files to. I restarted the computer, jiggled the fire wire,
turned the drive off and on again, and nothing. I also tried
adding hardware and that didn't work either. I only found one KB
article about "safely removing" a drive affects other drives but
that was fixed by SP3 supposedly. I'm out of ideas.


Porte

Does it show up in Disk Manager?
(R-Click "My Computer" -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management)
If so, try right-clicking on it and change the drive letter.

Does it show up in Device Manager?
(Start -> Run -> "devmgmt.msc")

Have you installed any new applications lately? Sometimes they will
interfere with disk mounting.

HTH,
John

 

[Porte Rouge]

It doesn't show up on device manager or disk manager. It does power up
when I turn the computer off and back on, and it turns itself off and
back on when I put the computer on standby and wake it up again.

Thanks,

Porte

 

[Porte Rouge]

Does it show up in Disk Manager?
(R-Click "My Computer" -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management)
If so, try right-clicking on it and change the drive letter.
Nope

Does it show up in Device Manager?
(Start -> Run -> "devmgmt.msc")
Nope

Have you installed any new applications lately? Sometimes they will
interfere with disk mounting.

Updates for Lightroom and Windows only

HTH,
  John

Thanks,

Porte

 

[BillW50]

In
Porte Rouge typed on Tue, 1 Sep 2009 04:14:00 -0700 (PDT):

Updates for Lightroom and Windows only

Well I would try it on another computer at this point. As you don't know
yet whether the drive or Windows has a problem. Does this drive have an
USB option too? As I would give that a shot too. Also many BIOS has a
boot menu which you can select another device to boot from. And if you
can connect it up by USB (I don't know if the BIOS can see a firewire
1394) device. Both on my netbooks and laptops, the boot menu is accessed
by hitting the ESC when the screen first lites up.

 

[Bennett Marco]

It doesn't show up on device manager or disk manager. It does power up
when I turn the computer off and back on, and it turns itself off and
back on when I put the computer on standby and wake it up again.

That's a function of the power being applied, and is no indication
that the drive is working.

If you see no problems with your IEEE device(s) in Device Manager,
then it's probably that the drive is bad.

 

[Porte Rouge]

That's a function of the power being applied, and is no indication
that the drive is working.

If you see no problems with your IEEE device(s) in Device Manager,
then it's probably that the drive is bad.

Would you say that the cable was still good because it powers up?

Thanks,

Porte

 

[Porte Rouge]

I am running WinXP Pro SP3. I have a Lacie Big disk 1Tb connected by
1394 cable to my
Dell Dimension 9150. Its been working fine, now it I can't find it to
move files to. I restarted the computer, jiggled the fire wire, turned
the drive off and on again, and nothing. I also tried adding hardware
and that didn't work either. I only found one KB article about "safely
removing" a drive affects other drives but that was fixed by SP3
supposedly. I'm out of ideas.

Porte

New information points to a bad power supply. I have been told that it
is quite common for them to suffer a loss in power where the drive can
spin up but can't transfer data to the computer. So a new cord is on
the way. Thanks for all your help.

Porte