External Hard Drive NOT recognised by PC...

nobile

I just installed an Evesham 3.5 500GB External Hard Drive to my PC.

It should be 'plug & play' (on XP)

Everything seemed fine - had all the little 'speech bubbles' at the bottom of the screen showing its progress.

Then a message confirming installation - and that device was ready to use.

BUT, it has NOT been detected in MY COMPUTERS (It just shows my C Drive)

I went into Device Manager - where it shows the Device as installed and 'working properly'

Thats as much as I can understand - I have very limited computer knowledge.

So far, 6 hours of plugging, unplugging, swapping USBs, removing other cales etc etc etc!!!

Very frustrating.


Any ideas??? Surely it should be simple??? Plug & Play!!

Chippy_Minton

You might need to format it. Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management. Does it show there? If so, right-click the external drive and click Format. Warning - make sure you're not formatting your other drives.

nobile

Sadly its not showing the external HD details Chippy.

Just the existing onboard Hard Drive details.

Any further help?

Thanks

alanclose

In Device Manager when you right click, go to properties, then volume the populate what drive letter comes up?

BeerBelly

Might just need a drive letter assigning or the drie initialised:

The below is assuming it has been picked up in Device Manager (you will soon find out, if you don't see the drive anyway).

- Right-Click on My Computer
- Click on Manage
- Click on Disk Management in the left pane
- On the right, you will see all Drives, CD ROM, PC HD, Floppy..etc. and hopefully you'll see your hard drive - called REMOVEABLE STORAGE DEVICE 'maybe'
- Right Click on it - if option Initialise is there click it
- Right Click on the drive again and choose either/or Assign Drive Letter and/or Format - think you can do both if you right click and choose properties.

When it has a drive letter it will appeear in My Computer

Hope this helps.

Belly

Dead_Eye_Jones

I have a USB drive that works on the downstairs PC, but not the other . As an IT pro I can confirm all the obvious checks out and can only come to the conclusion that one of the PC's just doesnt like me much !

Try testing it in a mate's PC .
Otherewise - it might just be a duffer. Send it back!