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Removable drive not seen

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by mpd881

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I bought one of those USB adapters that allow you to use internal hard drives as removable storage. It has been working well until today. I repartitioned and reformatted my 80 GB hard drive to use as storage and tried to plug it in using the adapter, but my computer isn't seeing it. I'm using WinXP SP2. WHen you reformat does it automatically assign that drive the c: designation? If so, how do I change it? I've read all about changing drive letters, but that doesn't help if I can't see it in the first place.

Please help! I'm beginning to get that funny feeling you get just before something bad happens (in this case, my hard drive crashing).

Thank you in advance

12 replies

by ozi eagle

Hi,
I've had similar issues on my W2K machine. What I found that worked for me was to check the task bar for the "unplug or eject hardware" icon and use it to stop the USB device (even though it is not registering, it might still be inserted), and then unplug it, shut down the computer, remove all power from the computer and external drive for several minutes. Power up and boot. When everything is loaded plug in the external drive and hopefully it will be detected.

by mpd881

The icon wasn't on my task bar. I tried powering it down and it still didn't work.

by softcorp.us

Q: WHen you reformat does it automatically assign that drive the c: designation?

A: No. When the drive is mounted, Windows XP will assign the next drive letter just like for a regular HDD.

---

If your external HDD is not being recognized, something is wrong. The likely possibilties are:

- External enclosure electronics failing.

- HDD failing. You can eliminate this by removing it from the external enclosure and directly connecting it to an IDE ribbon cable. If it works, the problem is not the HDD.

-----Steve Jackson

CEO, Software Corporation (Softcorp)
http://www.softcorp.us

by mpd881

I know it isn't the hard drive, it worked in another machine. It's not the cable/device, it worked on another drive.

by hal 9000

The most likely problem is that the Drive is jumpered wrong. Pull it out of the enclosure and make sure that it is jumpered to either Master or Cable Select. Once you have done this it should be working again.

Col

by willcomp

Hal9000 rides again. He's on right track. Check your manual for correct jumper setting.

You also may need to reinstall driver. Shouldn't be necessary, but won't hurt.

by john

Chances are an internal drive is using the drive letter assigned to the external drive, making the external drive invisable.

Right click on "MY Computer" choose "Manage", under "Storage" find "Disk Management" and click on it. It will show you the properties of all the drives. Change drive letters as needed.

by mpd881

The only drives I have are the c: and the d: (cd drive). I tried changing the cd drive and it still didn't work.

by buffer_cad

To all those of you who have suffered through 18 months of denial of this problem from WD. For those of you who have had to be lectured on the proper use of XP Disk Manager by some 18 year old kid on the support line at Microsoft, only to be told this is a WD issue.

Well, here is your answer. Faulty control board built into the passport case.

Open case, remove drive. Separate control board from drive.

Re-insert drive into a new controller (Ie: Blac X Box or external case)

If this doesn't work, I quit

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