usb hard drive not showing in explorer

[Shane]

Hi everyone.

I'm hoping someone can help me with a problem I have using a USB hard drive.

When it's connected windows vista goes through the usual USB driver
installation process without a problem, however the hard drive doesn't show
up in explorer. Nor does it show up in computer management/disk management.

It does show up in computer management/device manager/disk drives.

Does anyone know how I can fix this problem so I can use the hard drive? I
don't mind formatting it if necessary.

Thanks in advance.

Shane

 

[Spirit]

In Device Manager is it ASSIGNED a drive letter?

 

[Shane]

Hi Spirit.

No it's not. When I expand device manager there are two entries, one of
which is the USB harddrive (labelled fujitsu mhv2080ah usb device)

Cheers

Shane

 

[Spirit]

Try deleting the drive in Device Manager.... exit and reboot.

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-024

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windowsvista/ht/chdrlettervista.htm

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/...-the-drive-letter-and-paths-in-windows-vista/

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...remove-conflict-usb-or-firewire-drive-letter/

 

[Shane]

Huh, that's that solved then.

This may be premature because the formatting is still taking place however...

It turns out the problem was that the usb hard drive was formatted with the
drive label E.

Now windows vista uses E for the CD/DVD drive so it doesn't recognise the E
that is formatted in the usb hard drive.

Using the computer management tool/disk management I changed the CD/DVD's
drive letter from E to Z.

Voila, the USB hard drive now appears in the list under disk management.
While formatting the hard drive I've specified that a drive letter should not
be used and when it's done I'll change my CD/DVD drive back to letter E.

Hopefully this helps everyone else out there scratching their heads like I
was a hour ago before going to the gym

Cheers

Shane

 

[Spirit]

Glad it worked out ....

Huh, that's that solved then.

This may be premature because the formatting is still taking place
however...

It turns out the problem was that the usb hard drive was formatted with
the
drive label E.

Now windows vista uses E for the CD/DVD drive so it doesn't recognise the
E
that is formatted in the usb hard drive.

Using the computer management tool/disk management I changed the CD/DVD's
drive letter from E to Z.

Voila, the USB hard drive now appears in the list under disk management.
While formatting the hard drive I've specified that a drive letter should
not
be used and when it's done I'll change my CD/DVD drive back to letter E.

Hopefully this helps everyone else out there scratching their heads like I
was a hour ago before going to the gym

Cheers

Shane

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The hard drive was not formatted with "E:". The drive letter is assigned by
the OS. You should be able to move the drive to a different machine which
then assigns a different drive letter without any need of doing anything.
You can change the drive letter to any other available letter, say "W:"
without any problem.