USB Ext Hard Drive not showing in My Computer

Davey88

Hope someone can help me please?

I have just installed a USB External Hard Drive.

Windows XP picked up the device with no trouble at all and you can select it to "safely remove hardware" but the device does not show in "My Computer"

Can anyone suggest why this might be the case?

I also have a USB Memory stick connted before and in fact the one I have still shows up as another drive in My Computer using the same USB slot.

Also, I thought that it might have something to do with the Jumpers on the Drive it self but upon playing about with them the original position seems to be the correct one.

Can anyone suggest anything to help me?

CIS

Check the device manager to see if its showing some sort of conflict, sometimes xp says the items are working correctly even i fthey're not.

Other possible things
check is that you have any additional drivers that are needed to operate it and

the drive is likely to be USB 2.0, USB 2.0 sometimes doesn't work properly in a uSB 1.1 drive.

There might be too much power being drawn by other hardware to allow sufficent for the USB drive, (common on a laptop). Unplug as many other devices as possible and see what happens then, and also try using a powered USB hub or plugging the USB drive direct to a power jack,if it has a plug. on iy.

Davey88

Hi CIS,
Thanks very much for your suggestions.

I had already checked the Device Manager and it says the drive is working ok.
Tried re-installing the drives as well to no avail.

The drive has it's own power supply so I don't believe that to be the problem. The USB port is 2.0 and the device is 2.0 so no conflict issues either.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your time.

Juni_3

Is the drive formatted? Go into Control Panel,Adminstrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management.

If it shows up in there as an unformatted volume then you need to format it from that window.

jakemuk

ok you need to go into control panel

administrative tools
computer management

and then select disk management

from there do you see another drive ? which you can create a partition

odowdchr

If all the above doesn't help........sometimes when you have a few other devices attached, like USB sticks, card readers, cameras.....XP might not have assigned your external USB drive a drive letter.

If that's the case...in Disk Management as above...indentify your Drive, right click on it and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths". Choose a higher letter, like P or something. Normally works.

Davey88

Hello to all that have responded.

Many thanks for all your help and suggestions.

It was the suggestion about Formatting the hard drive that finally worked - so thanks very much Juni.

I feel a little stupid really becuase had I installed the drive inside the PC then of course the first thing I would have done was format the drive. Anyway, thanks again to all that replied, esp to Juni who first gave the suggestion of formatting the drive.

Cheers very much...Merry Christmas to all.