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USB Hard Drive no longer recognized

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11 replies

by noels0ma13

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I have 2 USB external Hard drives. I have a Seagate 6 GB USB 2.0 mini hard drive, and a 2.5" hard drive (6 GB) in an external enclosure. I am using a Windows XP (SP 2) machine. It has worked fine for almost a year with no issues. I do have a 4 port USB 2.0 hub that I have used for expansion since not all of the USB slots are easily accessible. When plugging the device in the hub I have never had a problem. One day when plugging the device in, I noticed that the power light did not come on, and Windows found the device, but listed it as an unrecognized device. It now identified every USB HD I connect to it as an unrecognized device. I still have a USB printer and mouse connected to the USB and both work fine, but the Hard drives do not show up at all except as an unrecognized drive. I have completely reinstalled to fix the issue one other time with another computer, but I am having the problem on this one. The devices work on other machines without any problems, but it appears the mass storage device drivers and the USB external drive drivers are now corrupt on my XP system. Any ideas on how to fix this would be appreciated.

11 replies

by w2ktechman

and uninstall the USB devices completely for the HDD's
then let it search and re-find them.

by noels0ma13

I have gone into Device manager and the only device I see is an unrecognized device underneath the USB devices. I have removed it and uninstalled it, but when I plug in the USB drive the same unrecognized device shows up. I can even choose to reinstall the driver and it says that the current driver is the best for this device. (Ugh)

by w2ktechman

but remove all USB devices, and delete all USB ports.
plug everything in again and this time choose to reinstall the driver.

If it cannot fine the driver or proper driver, download the Chipset driver for your motherboard and install from there.

by hellowinniepanda

My external drive is not recognized in the following places and the drive still lights up/powers on.

Explorer View
My Computer

However, when I go to 'Safely Remove Hardware', I see it listed USB Mass Storage Device, and when I double click that, I see BOTH USB Mass Storage Device AND Seagate FreeAgent Go USB Device

When I go to device manager, I see 'USB Mass Storage Device' in the USB Controllers, but I do not see the name of my drive (Seagate FreeAgent Go).

I have tried to do the following:
Unplugged all USB devices, uninstalled all USB drives, shut down, restart, plugged in my external drive, and then reinstalled all my drivers.

Installed the chipset for my dell 620

Installed the Autoplay Repair Wizard from Microsoft

Can anyone suggest any other ideas?

by bobbrann

running Compaq notebook, WinXP, new Fujitsu 80 gig SATA in new Coolmax enclosure, using 2 USB plugs [power + data] it appears in the device manager, disk drives, ok, but it doesn't show up in the My Computer folders as "drive F:" like it should. Tried deleting the USB hubs etc. and they wouldn't 'go away' in the device mgr. I deleted the entry under "disk drives" and it found it again on reboot as new hardware, and installed it ok, but still it doesn't show up in the folders as an F: drive.

by noels0ma13

After removing of all USB devices and then uninstalling the USB controllers, I installed the nForce chipset driver again. The components were added and now the external drives are recognized. Thanks!!

by w2ktechman

I am glad it worked out.
Please mark this as helpful so that others with a similar problem can take notice.

by rob miners

Try rebooting the computer without any USB devices attached. Then plug in the USB drive, right click on My Computer, select manage, and then click ?Disk Management.? If the drive is not present in the Disk Management window or if you are not able to access it, then the drive may have failed. In this window you should see all of your connected physical drives, their format, if they are healthy, and the drive letter.
Change the drive letter of the drive. Right-click on the drive in the list, and from the resulting menu select "Change Drive Letters and Paths"
Click on Change so you can change the drive letter. Click Change.
Select a new drive letter from the drop down list, preferably the one that is not normally used for this drive.
Click Yes on the confirmation screen and you are done.
Caution: The cause of unpredictable behavior in a USB drive is often found to be the incorrect removal of a previously connected USB device. When removing USB devices right click on the ?Safely Remove Hardware? icon in the menu bar tray. This is usually found in the bottom right hand corner of the monitor. Once you have clicked on the icon, a menu with a single selection should appear. Click again on that selection to see the ?Safely Remove Hardware? window. Select the correct USB device and click the ?Stop.? When you receive the message that it is safe to remove the device, unplug the USB device from the computer.

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