external hard drive not showing in My Computer

glicky

When I connect the exterbal hard drive into the USB ports, the flash drive gets power (the light is on) and the "Safely remove icon" appears on the app. tray. It doesn't appear in My Computer nor does it appear on Disk Management.

The device shows up in the device manager with no yellow signs. It shows up under Disk Drives and under USB controllers. Under properties, the location of the drive is written as Location 0.

The USB port works on other items (i.e. printer, fan etc, i-pod), but not this hard drive and another hard drive that I have.

Any ideas please?

andy2004

glicky is it a 2.5in portable hard drive. does the lead from the usb caddy to have 2 usb cables. if so use BOTH, one of the cables is power+data then other is power only.

if its a 3.5in drive. should be working.
What size drive ?? as in Gb's

[Deleted User]

Check through Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management then under the heading Storage double click on Disk Management.

Does the drive show up in there?

If so, you might just need to assign it a drive letter via right clicking on it.

glicky

andy2004 wrote: »

glicky is it a 2.5in portable hard drive. does the lead from the usb caddy to have 2 usb cables. if so use BOTH, one of the cables is power+data then other is power only.

if its a 3.5in drive. should be working.
What size drive ?? as in Gb's

Yes, it's a 2.5in portable hard drive.
Yes it does have 2 usb cables. I've tried both, but it does not make any difference. It still says it's connected as in "safely remove hardware", but nothing in "My Computer".

It's an 80gb drive.

glicky

anewhope wrote: »

Check through Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management then under the heading Storage double click on Disk Management.

Does the drive show up in there?

If so, you might just need to assign it a drive letter via right clicking on it.

Nope, the drive doesn't show up there.

I'm close to banging my head against the wall

[Deleted User]

What make and model is it?

glicky

anewhope wrote: »

What make and model is it?

I got it from E-buyer .... http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177125...... BUT, I'm having the same problem with another one I was using for about a year now - that was a Samsung and all of a sudden the drive doesn't show up on that one, hence why I bought this one ...... I thought the Samsung had gone kaput, so I purchased a new one :mad:

It now looks like the Samsung one is OK and it's something to do with the drivers (or it's a coincidence that both of these external hd's don't work). The USB port works OK because it works on my printer/i-pod and fan

tdlwebs

I had the same problem and it turned out to be the cable not quite plugged in properly (on the hard drive socket). The light was on and everything but the drive wasn't visible in Windows. But as I pushed on the connector it suddenly sprang into life on my desktop.

I know it sounds daft but it could be worth checking.

Rikki

You need both cables in at the same time. One is for power for the external drive, the other is to access the external drive.

Read the reviews Click Here

glicky

tdlwebs wrote: »

I had the same problem and it turned out to be the cable not quite plugged in properly (on the hard drive socket). The light was on and everything but the drive wasn't visible in Windows. But as I pushed on the connector it suddenly sprang into life on my desktop.

I know it sounds daft but it could be worth checking.

Oh gosh I wish it was that, but unfortunately it's not! I tried that just now and .......... :mad: nope!

BTW, what's the screwdriver for?

Can anyone else help at all please?

kwikbreaks

You keep talking about the USB port being OK. As has been mentioned before you need two ports one for each connector on the double end of the cable then the single end of the cable goes to the drive. You may well be doing that but your replies don't make that 100% clear.

They can sometimes work with a single port with a standard cable but they are pushing the power rating of a single port to the limits which is why they come with the special cable.