Computer not recognising drives/storage

rennysnell

I recently installed an Epson DX7400 all-in-one. This printer includes a built-in card reader, which shows up in 'My Computer' as a 'Device with removable storage'.

From about the time I installed this printer, one or other of my existing drives/storage, eg., Maxtor, Zip, fails to be identified on startup and is not shown in 'My Computer'. Presently, I've even 'lost' my CD drive - simply not present. The missing drive can reappear, randomly, it seems - certainly with no remedial action by me - but one or other of them is generally missing.

Prior to installing the Epson, I have never had this problem (previous all-in-one: Lexmark, without card reader). All drives showed up on startup.

Is this new card reader facility somehow affecting my startup? Any help with this would be much appreciated. (Operating system: XP)

hotkee

Possbily a conflict or loose connections.

You could go for the drastic action after checking your connections, trying different ports and all failing - then uninstall the epsom drivers and try.

check if the drivers work on other pc as well.

Strider590

Are you using a laptop?
For some reason i've only come across this problem on various laptops. Yet my own PC will handle in excess of 7 external drives with no problem at all.
It appears that many laptops have USB hubs and not actual direct USB ports. The difference is that a hub is split from a port, so you get two or more devices connecting via the same data bus. They simply cannot handle that many connections.

Also possible: sometimes XP gets confused when new USB storage devices are added, each card reader slot has to be assigned a drive letter. Sometimes XP tries to assign a drive letter that is already taken, gets confused and fails to assign a drive letter at all.