external hard drive - can't 'see' it

Little_Vics

Hi,

here's hoping someone can help quickly!

I have an external hard drive plugged into my laptop. The icon to remove the hardware safely is there, but I can't see the icon to open the blinking hard drive - can't 'see' it.

Any ideas?

JasX

right click on your 'my computer' icon and select 'manage' look under disk management there, has the drive been used before and does it contain data?

Little_Vics

Hi,

Done that - it's not there. There's loads of stuff on it so we know it has worked in the past! I've turned everything on and off again, and even created a new doc to save to it - but just can't see it.

LV

Little_Vics

am panicking now....

JasX

did you actually right click on on my computer and get into the 'Computer Management' administrative tools window, it looks like this?



If after several disconnect/reconnect attempts its not showing there at all I'd suggest either:

-trying it in a different computer.

-taking it out of the caddy and hooking the bare drive up internally inside a desktop

odd you get the use remove icon thing, how is it described there if you LEFT click on it? does it have a drive letter?

Little_Vics

yes I got that (the image you've posted) and it's not there.
We don't have another computer to try it on.
I don't know what you mean re the caddy/bare drive
It has no drive letter - just it's name (Fujuistu thingy)

thanks anyway

BritRael

I just had the same problem. I have had this 80gb external USB drive for years. Last night I plugged it into my laptop and like yours, it is detected when I plugged it in, and I can see it in the USB list to 'stop' it, but I cannot see it with explorer. So this morning, like the advice above, I tried it in my works PC. But same thing happened.
Recently, the end plate on it's caddy broke off (even though it continued to work perfectly) and I left it off. So, an hour ago when it didn't work on my 2nd PC I thought that this might be causing the problem (maybe because the drive was now touching the caddy case?), so I put the end plate back on which centralises the HDD so it doesn't touch the case and hey presto, it worked!
Good luck

culpepper

It might be that the actual drive inside the case has become dislodged somehow . I havent ever opened up a ready made external drive but inside my external hard drive caddy, there is a connector into which my ordinary hard drive fits ,I imagine that the ready made drives are the same and that you would need to open the case and reseat the drive inside it. Obviously this is something you would do when it is unplugged and disconnected .

celler

First off try it in another machine,this should give an idea if its the drive or your system.
Have you allways plugged it into the same port ,sometimes when using lots of different devices over a long period with constant changing of usb ports.Conflicts seem to happen.
Get into sys admin (as shown in JAsX post)look for drive if its there is the drive info correct.
If not what i had to do was make Device manager list all used usb devices(google it) it stores them so there can be many of them multiple times.delete them all remove all your usb drivers ,hubs etc reboot it will find them and reinstall drivers.
Hope this helps

esuhl

Maybe try plugging the drive in via a USB connector on the back of the PC. Sometimes the ones on the front panel use a different bus controller.

Little_Vics

thanks for all your advice - we've tried all of that now! I'm going to bring it all in to work next week so our friendly IT chap can have a look.