Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: 7/14/06 Help, my external hard drive is not recognized by my PC

Answer:

First off, try a different USB cord. It's possible since it's an external drive that the cord could be faulty, or could have been damaged if moved. USB cables that come with drives like this also have greater chances to be faulty. If that doesn't work, try this next option.

It's possible that the drive is not being mapped properly by the Operating System. In simple terms, the drive isn't being recognized because the drive letter isn't correct or it's having trouble recognizing it.

First, while both machines are turned off, connect the USB from the LaCie Drive to the computer, turn the LaCie Drive on first, then turn the PC on.

When Windows is loaded, goto "my computer" and check if it's there.
If not, close the window, then RIGHT CLICK on "my computer" and choose MANAGE After a few seconds you'll see windows called Computer Management Towards the left you'll see a menu system, go down to the "Disk Management" submenu which is under the Storage root. Now towards the right side, you'll see a list of available drives. This includes your cd-rom drives as well as HDD's and others. Now if you'll look towards the bottom part of the right side, you'll see the disks again, but with a graphic type next to them mentioning size and what condition it's in. Now scroll down in this page, see if you can find your LaCie Drive. If it's there and you can click on the graphic part, right click on it and then click "Change Drive Letter and Paths..."

Choose the LaCie drive in the next window, then choose "Change Drive Letter". Change it to any available letter "usually something past D:\ depending on how many drives are on the pc". Hit okay on the remaining windows in order to close them out, then reboot the computer. Now, if you see the LaCie drive but the graphic is all greyed out and it says Unallocated... then we have a problem. It means that it hasn't been partitioned. You could use a program to try and rescue the disc, but that would move things to a whole nother level. If you don't see the LaCie at all in the Computer management window, then either your USB drivers are missing, or the USB cord is faulty.

To help prevent things like this from happening, if you plan on removing a USB Storage device, there is a small icon that looks like a green arrow in your tool bar over by the clock. If you put your cursor over this, it will say "Safely Remove Hardware". If you left click this option, you'll see a caption similar to "Safely remove *** mass storage device". A list of any external devices "usually harddrives or some sort of other storage unit" will also be there, just choose the appropriate device. Then after a little activity, you will see a bubble come up saying "it's safe to remove hardware" and then you just either turn the device off or unplug it.

One more thing, always back up to another source. Although external hard drives are handy as backup, they can still fail. Think about getting a DVD burner to make a periodic backup of what you want to keep safe. They are cheap, and reliable.

Submitted by: Walter P.

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Answer:

San,

It seems to sound like you have forgotten to reinstall something, either the USB drivers or possibly drivers for the external HDD. Open up the Control Panel, click on System, then the Hardware tab, and then Device Manager.

Look at the "Disk Drives" option and click on the "+" sign beside it. There should be an entry for your external HDD. It might read something like "LaCie USB Device." If it is not there, then your USB port is not recognizing it.

In Device Manager, open up the Serial Bus Controllers. If there is a red "x," then you need to reinstall the USB drivers from the disk that came with your motherboard, or retrieve them from Dell, or possibly download them from a third party Driver website. Also, make sure that you have USB "2.0" and not "1.0" or "1.1". There will be issues if you do not get the correct one. If you see any red x's, anywhere in Device Manager, you will need to give them attention. Reboot after reinstalling.

If the USB Device entry for your external HDD is there, click on it. This will show the properties. Towards the bottom of the properties window, there should be an entry that says," This device is working properly." If it does not say this then click on "Troubleshoot" and follow the instructions to repair the problem, then reboot.

Another item to note in the same window is a few lines down. There should be an entry under "Device Usage" that says, "This device is enabled." If it does not say this then change it to the correct entry, then reboot.

Another possibility is that your external HDD needs drivers that you will need to download from the website or get from the disk (if any) that came with your external HDD. This would explain why is does not work on other machines. I have not worked with a "LaCie" HDD before, but at the LaCie website, there is an option for Drivers so you might need to go there to see if your particular model needs Drivers.

In the future, get all your "ducks lined up" before reformatting. Take a good long look at your existing situation (programs, drivers, etc.), plan out what you need to do, and try to have all the disks or information on hand (or at least write down what you may need to know but won't have available to you because formatting erases your HDD and all existing information). I have reformatted harddrives many times and have learned from experience that if you do not have all the disks in front of you for all the programs you want to re-install, you will never remember them from memory.

Assuming none of the above solutions work, you can try to install your LaCie HDD on a friend's computer, installing the drivers on their machine so that it can connect with the HDD. Make sure that their machine has USB 2.0. If all of this fails then you might try taking your external HDD to a professional to have them copy everything from the HDD to CDs so that you can have copies to put onto your next external HDD and also have backups of your existing information.

One final idea, that might help you avoid reformatting might be to partition your internal HDD and use Norton Ghost or similar programs to assist you. This will make a copy of your system so that you have a good copy to go back to. Roxio's Go Back or Windows System Restore is another way to get around reformatting. Only reformat if all else fails.

Good luck, San. This might seem like a daunting challenge but don't give up without a fight. I know I've written alot and it might seem involved, but it really isn't that hard.

Submitted by: Mike

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Answer:

Hello San,

Can we get the drive in working order again? We'll do our best!

First let me state a couple of things and why I wont' cover these issues...

[[[ I will have to rule out these few issues as you have tried the drive on other computers with exact results and assume all computers had working ports, usb 2, and XPSP1 or better...... Power suppy\USB ports\mainboard problem\etc... This is also not knowing what specific model drive you have, if it's USB powered, I would typically say bad ports, USB trouble or power supply but two reasons I would rule this out is due to you trying it on other computers, and not knowing if you have and AC adapter which would also rule out power to disk drive "ALONG WITH" the other pc troubleshooting issues you tried. I also cannot say if you had some sort of RAID configuration or if your drive is indeed capable, if it was and you wiped out your other drive, this may have affected your external drive but I can't say for sure. And last... Not knowing if you have firewire capabilities on your drive, you may try a firewire port if you have one and see if this works retrieve\detect\repair. We will assume you don't for this case...]]]

[[So going off the information given by you, let's start by tackling your first and second question....]]

1. What went wrong? 2.) can this be avoided in the future?

[These may be one in the same....]

First of all, you had no mention of properly removing the drive or trying another USB cable. The little icon in the task bar on the bottom of your screen left of the clock, that pops up when you plug in a usb device (the safely remove hardware) is there for you to properly remove the device in question as to not damage the device. If you left click the icon , you will get options to remove the proper device from the system. When you click on the proper device, and click STOP, it will tell you it safely removed the device so you can THEN unplug the USB device. (Hint, hint) You may also right click the icon and remove the exact device in question (unless you have more than one.)

< When you don't use this method, you risk damaging the device permanantly or erasing it's contents.>

So for future reference, and to avoid this, use the Safely Remove Hardware icon, then unhook the device, then unhook the usb cable from the PC. Note that if it is damaged, it may not have been your doing as it may have been going bad to begin with.


Many times people don't think about handling an external drive with care. Just because it's external doesn't mean it can't be damaged by bumping it or dropping it or putting it next to a magnetic source which could damage it. They may have an enclosure but still need care.


3. How can I retrieve the data on that external drive?


This is where it gets a bit more tricky as it could be numerous things as well as the cause of you PC slowing down to begin with and worse case scenario, a bad external drive. With external hard drives, data is not so easily accessed as with internal drives when they are not detected. Most often replacement is the best case scenario as data recovery is VERY expensive, far more than what another drive may cost in most cases and most often even the companies who warranty the drives will tell you they will not recover your data . If you can't get the data off, then it would be lost if the drive is repaired\replaced. While external drives are great backups, I still find DVDs and CDs to be one of the best sources for backup of important info ALONG with another drive.

[[ Let's give it a shot...]]

The first thing to do is this, make sure your XP has all the updates all the way to SP2 although SP1 is required for many external drives to work <properly>, it's still a good idea to get ALL updates. Make sure your USB cable isn't dirty or plugged up with some gunk as well as the ports. Test a different cable with your hard drive to see if it has the same issue. Knowing you tested the drive in different computers tells me this is probably not your issue but using the same USB cable will cause the same results if bad. If the cable is in fact ok, then what you need to do is this...Shut down the computer, hook up the drive and then restart, see if detected, if not, do the following , try hooking up the drive while already booted, first the power then the USB, then if not detected, restart the PC as is and see if finally detected.

[[ If not...]]

Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, select Properties, Hardware, Device Manager tab. Look for the Disk Drives and click on the plus sign to the left. This will display if your drive is detected or not. Now , there are a few scenarios here, it may be detected and showing here, or it may not, <either way if is or not> and it has NO yellow (!) or red (?) by it, go to Start, Control Pannel, and make sure you click the Classic View. Look for Administrative Tools and open it. Then open the Computer Management icon in the list. Once open, scroll down the list until you see Disk Management on the left side of the box. Double click to open it as well. Look in the list to see if the drive name is listed here. If it is, it may have no drive letter. To assign a drive letter to it, look at the bottom of the window where you will see the disks listed once again usually with a blue line above it. Right click the drive in question, click Change Drive Letter and Paths and assign a non used letter to it, click OK and then close out of all windows. Restart the computer and when booted, double click the My Computer icon and open it to see if the drive is indeed there now.

If not listed, go back into Device Manager as mentioned above, this time with a different scenario. If it is listed but has the yellow (!) or red (?) there could be a driver issue or the device was not properly installed. Typically these types of hard drives don't need software or drivers but yours may.

<Note: Without knowing if you had an install program with the drive, we will assume you do for this.>

First though if has the signs above, go back into the Disk Drives + sign and expand again, right click the drive and choose Update Driver, <note: you should be connected to internet for this and if you have a disk, it may ask for it, or put in drive and allow detection or manually direct the driver update manager to it's location>

If the updater finds the driver and installs it, you may need to reboot to see if drive detected. However, you may in fact have to uninstall the drive first, and then install the driver, still in the Device Manager, choose the drive yet again, and choose to uninstall the device, close out all windows and restart the computer again. This may give Windows an opportunity to re-detect the drive.

You may need to install the software manually and find the USB drivers for your device or go to manufacturer website and check for either updated drivers or software. Windows does provide drivers but are very limited and mostly not compatable with hardware. One more thing to try is going to Start\Control pannel\Add Hardware icon. Double click to open, and it will scan for the device, choose YES I have already connected the hardware and click next. See if it listed in the lower box. If it is select it and click next and it will either attempt to install it or say it's finished installing device. On the bottom list if drive is not seen, choose add new hardware device and search for and click next, choose the search for and install the hardware automatically. The wizard will search for the device and return a message saying successful or there was a problem or find the specific device yourself. If not detected at this point, it probably won't using this method.

< If the updates and\or software do not fix the problem, it may in fact be another issue. >



[[On to corruption....]]


This said, A corrupt drive will not always be detected by the Operating System so the next thing to try would be this...

Your sofware (if you have it) may have a disk fix utility included as many do. Use this to attempt to fix the device as it may be corrupt.

<I warn though, any of these steps can result in loss of your data.>

It may also be a boot disk utility for your specific drive, if so , boot from it by putting it in the disk drive and restarting the computer. If it won't boot from the disk, you may need to go into your CMOS to set the boot settings. If so, do this...

When you power on the PC, immediately tap the Del key or F10, F1, depending on your system, until you get to the CMOS setup screen. Don't be alarmed if your mouse won't work as it's disabled here and you need to use the arrow keys. Look for something in the way of boot configuration, boot order, as it will show you the method of booting currently. Use the page up or down or arrow keys to change it to CD rom. Note: in some systems you may have to change more than one to Cdrom. Once configured, hit Esc button to go back to main screen and then you typically hit F10 to save and exit, hit Y for yes and the pc should reboot and hopefully to your CD.

<Warning: Every system is different and if you don't know or get lost, do NOT continue. Find info on the internet or ask someone who does know how as this can really mess up your computer if choosing wrong settings.>

If all was successful and you booted from the disk, and did whatever was neccessary from the instructions on disk to fix your drive, your drive may finally be repaired and\or detected.

< If you can't find or don't have the disk, once again, go to the website and search for such software. >


[[ Your bad , bad drive...]]

A bad external drive can cause slow downs on computers and other errors which may in fact be your case. Did you notice any unusual noises from the drive before this happened or when the PC began slowing down? Perhaps a lot noisier? If so, this would be another sign of a bad drive. Or as stated, you may have corrupted the drive by possibly unplugging it improperly many times or even once.

[[Let's try this ...]]

(IF) your external drive is under warranty: I would suggest getting a live CD of some sort, whether it be knoppix or BartPE which either one should work, go here

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

And here..

http://www.knoppix.org/

Both will boot to memory not your hard drive and have been reported to detect corrupt\bad external drives even if not detected by your Operating system, so you may copy the information to your internal drive. You may have to do some reading on this and is too long for me to post here. This is the safest and cheapest recover route to take. I would also like to mention if you can recover your data, you may then re-format the drive yet again and get it working if simply corrupt. If it's too bad, there may be little hope of recovery or repair. Other methods of the recovery of data can cost a lot of money, but it depends how bad you want your data.



[[One other way...]]


Note: <This is strictly "Assumption on what could Possibly be done"><This involves going into the computer, taking apart the case of the PC, and external Hard drive, and mounting it inside the case to the IDE cable. If you don't feel comfortable doing so, have someone who does do this, or ask for help. If you don't know how to do this, there are many step by step tutorials etc...Just Google for one , sometimes in PDF, or ask on Cnet forums. >

Next is the hard way: <and remember IF it's under warranty, do not attempt this as it will void your warranty.>

Also as I said before, I don't know the exact model and cannot tell you if the drive is part of the enclosure(case) or can be removed. This would also indicate if you can buy another drive for the enclosure which is possible also if bad and unrecoverable.

On many , the case may have two screws or more that usually are secured as to not fall out of the case but enough to remove the drive itself. (Remembering this is an assumption) Your drive may be removed and hooked up internally inside the computer itself. You would hook the drive inside the computer as slave on the IDE cable, or if more than one drive, unhook a cd\dvd drive temporarily and hook the hard drive in it's place. On newer systems, you may only need to boot up and see the drive (IF) detected and then access it's contents and use some sort of disk fix utilities to attempt repair or format.


I hope this helps you with your issue, if not by fixing it, then at least to understand it.


Take care.

Submitted by: Paul K.

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Answer:

Hello,

It sounds like you could be missing a certain driver for your system. A couple months back I got an old Dell Dimensions computer from a co-worker. I used it for a while with an external USB hard drive before I decided to do a clean rebuild (i.e. reformat the hard drive and re-install Windows). When the system was up and running again it would not recognise my external hard drive. I just assumed this happened because I didn't have any of the original drivers that came the system. I have rebuilt a few systems in the past but this is the first Dell system I have dealt with, and the first time this has ever happened to me.

Now to answer your questions:
1.) What went wrong? - When you reformatted your hard drive you most likely deleted a driver that the system needed to recognise the external hard drive. If you bought this system from Dell they should be able to help you fix the problem. You should also check out the LaCie website to see if they have any downloads or information that might help you.

2.) Can this be avoided in the future? - Next time make sure that you have all the latest drivers for your system before you start to rebuild (I keep all of mine on a CD that I burned). In this case (and in mine), you didn't know that there would be an issue because you probably started using your external drive without having to install any drivers.

3.) How can I retrieve the data on that external drive? - If you can't find a copy of the missing driver, there are a couple options for you to access the info on the external drive. The easiest one is to connect the drive to a second computer and share it across a home network. Here's how to do that:

Note:
I am assuming that you have more than one computer on a network at home, and they are both running Windows XP.
1. Attach the drive to the second computer and turn it on.
2. Open Windows Explorer.
3. Find the external drive in the folder list on the left, and right-click on it.
4. From the pop-up menu select properties.
5. Click on the tab called Sharing.
6. Windows XP should ask you if you want to share these files with other people that use this computer or with others across the network. Select the option for across the network.
7. You should now get a warning about the dangers for sharing files across the network and another prompt if you want to do this anyway. Select the option to do it.
8. In the new window that opens select the "Share this folder" option, and type in a name for the drive in the "Share name:" box. (i.e. External_HD).
9. Click Apply and then click OK.
10. Now go to the Start button and select Run.
11. In the Run window type cmd and then click OK.
12. In the Command-line window that opens up, type ipconfig and then press Enter.
13. You should get some info about your local area connection. Write down the numbers that appear beside the heading IP Address. The numbers should look something like this 192.168.0.0
14. Now go back to your Dell computer and open-up Windows Explorer.
15. From the menu bar up top select Tools and then Map Network Drive.
16. In the box labelled Folder, type in the IP Address that you wrote down earlier and the Share name that you gave the external drive (e.i. \\192.168.0.0\External_HD).
17. If you want to automatically reconnect to the external drive on the second computer every time you login to the Dell computer, make sure you check-off the Reconnect at logon box. If you don't the next time you login to your computer you will have to re-map that drive.
18. Click Finish. Windows should quickly search for the shared drive and open another window showing you the files on that drive. The new network drive should also now appear in the folder list in Windows Explorer.

The second option you have is a bit more technical. You could remove the hard drive from the external case and install it in your Dell PC as a second drive. This is actually a simple procedure but if you don't know what you're doing you could damage your external hard drive and damage your PC. The other issue is that Dell computers are sometimes very limited in what can be added to them. You might open the computer and find that there is no room to add a second hard drive, or that you have to replace the hard drive cable in order to install the second drive. You might be able to take the system to a computer store and ask them to install the second drive for you.

Submitted by: Craig B.

My first guess would be the external enclosure isn't working properly. Windows may be detecting it before power on but if there is a power issue or the case or hard drive is bad, it will also cause this to happen. Did you try(while powered up) going to control pannel\admin tools\computer management\disk management and checking to see if it's in there? Also, it may be conflicting. I don't (right now) think it's a mainboard issue.

Paul

Answer:

San,

Normally, when you install a hard drive, any drive, into a computer, certain markers are placed on the drive that identifies the drive as belonging to a given machine. The drive, therefore is marked as being native to your Dell computer.

This is where it gets a little complicated. Even though the hardware hasn't changed, and even your copy of Windows hasn't changed, the process used by Windows to identify hardware are generated with a time/date stamp that makes each installation different and unique.

So... How to get the drive to work...

Open up the Disk Management Console (as a user with Admin rights). This can be found by Right-Clicking on My Computer and selecting Manage on the menu. The Disk Management Console plug in is on the list towards the bottom.

When you open this, you should see your 37 GB (40 actually) drive and your CD/DVD drive. When you plug the external drive in, it should appear as a "foreign" drive. If you right-click on the column that appears in the middle (where it says Disk2), you should see an item that says "Import Foreign Disk" or "Import Foreign Volume"

Either way, by clicking on this, you should be able to access the drive again as you did before.

The same procedure will allow you likewise to access the drive on other computers running 2000 or XP.

Submitted by: Pete Z.

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Answer:

ok, there are a few ways that you can retrieve all of you stuff on the external hard-drive. the first thing is to take it to a repair dealership and ask them to look at it. it might cost you but they might be able to find out what is wrong with it. a hard drive is not a backup or storage space for files, they just make second copies. Sometimes they'll note trying another USB 2.0 cable, asking if the drive spins up or tell you of a reset button or procedure that's not in the manual. At worst you can remove the drive and try it in a PC and boot up your KNOPPIX (use google to learn about) CD to see if it can see the files. Again, these external drives are just external drives. Not a substitute for a backup.

i hope this helped.

Submitted by: Joshua W.

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Answer:

Hi San..I read your article today and I think i have 'maybe' one solution which might be answerable to all your questions which you've asked.

Well as you've written in your article that your operating system is Windows XP. But yet there's some details which you've missed, i.e you have to tell whether you are using any 'SERVICE PACK' or not and if yes what pack you might be presently using. Also you forgot to tell which Windows XP you are using, Professional or Home edition?

The 'SERVICE PACK' from Microsoft might come to help since in Windows XP Home or sometimes in Professional version also, the Windows drivers' aren't up -to-date to keep all hardwares and softwares work smoothly.

I think the problem towards your PC is that your 'USB DRIVER' is not updated and thus when you are connecting your external cable, i.e your USB cable to your PC, windows is not being able to recognize your USB 2.0 cable just because your USB DRIVER is too old. You should try to get one USB DRIVER V2.0 from Microsoft web site or if you update your windows with the latest service pack, your problem will surely be resolved, i.e windows will detect your USB cable from your USB port.

I am much sure that if you update your windows with the service pack, not only the USB driver shall be updated, but all your drivers shall become updated which might prevent other hardware to fail. Also don't forget to activate windows update and update your windows regularly.

You may be able to retrieve your data from another PC which has atleast SERVICE PACK 2 installed and if you want to avoid it to happen in the future, backup the latest driver of USB 2.0 from any PC on which service pack 2 or higher has been installed.

Note:- if you don't know where the files have been kept in windows directory, right-click on my computer->Properties->Hardware->Device Manager. Then click on the '+' where you will see the Universal Serial Bus Controllers. Right-clicking on each element and by selecting the 'properties' -> 'Driver' -> 'Driver Details'. A box will appear and take note of the files and where they've been kept in which directory.

Then later when you reformat your windows and when you're installing all your drivers aback, update your USB drivers which are being indicated as unknown, update the unknown USB drivers and browse the files from your backup!

Hope my explanation will help you to overcome you issue.

Submitted by: Anooj M.

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Answer:

One possible solution for the LaCie external HDD is that, you need to check to see if USB 2.0. has been setup. To verify this, do the following:

1. Click start
2. Select control Panel
3. Double-click the System icon
4. Select the Hardware tab
5. Click the Device Manager button
6. At the bottom of the list, you will find USB - expand the tree by clicking on the + symbol on the left.
There should be a line of text that reads - Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enchanced Host Controller - 24CD. Also there should be USB Root Hub to accompany the line of text.

If this line of text is missing then you will need to re-install the drivers for USB 2.0

Submitted by: Walter P.

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Answer:

Hello San,

I also run XP and was told to do the same thing with my second internal hard drive. I had the same results as you with your external hard drive. When I plugged the second drive in XP did not recognise its existence. SO, I reformatted again WITH the second internal hard drive plugged in and well, well, XP recognized it DURING installation as well as afterwards. Problem solved.

You see XP is designed to scan your computer configuration during installation and anything it doesn't find during said installation is simply not read after installation.

Hope this helps.

Submitted by: Julie A.

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Answer:

If the USB device was unplugged before it was unmounted, the directory information is probably damaged. A disk repair utility may be able to manually mount the drive, and then perform the necessary directory repairs.

Submitted by: Eric S.

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Answer:

I have a LaCie 250 gig external Porshe drive. While it is running on a Mac Powerbook, not windows, it has exhibited some unusual behaviors.
Occasionally when I plug it in, the drive refuses to be seen or mount. I have pulled out the plug and turned it 180 degrees before rep-lacing it in the power socket, reversing the polarity of the current running through the cord. For whatever reason, this causes the drive to be mounted without fail.

Has nothing to do with the computer but you might give that a try.

Submitted by: Charles B.

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Answer:

This is in regard to San L's problem with the La Cie external hard drive.

1--Never disconnect an external hard drive until you have first shut down your computer. A friend of mine did this once and ran into a problem similar to yours. The external drive should always be powered on and connected to your computer before you turn on your computer. When you shut down, always turn off the computer before you turn off the external drive.

2--What operating systems are running on the other computers on which you tested the drive? If the drive was formatted for NTFS and the other computers are running Windows 98 or ME, they will not be able to recognize it.

3--It is possible that the drive may need to be reformatted before Windows XP will recognize it again. Connect the drive to the computer in the order that I've described above, then open Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. In the left pane, select Disk Management and see if the physical drive itself appears in either of the right panes. If it does, select it. If the existing partitions do not show up, you may need to repartition and reformat the drive for it to be usable again.

This doesn't help you when it comes to retrieving the data already on the disc, of course. You did not give the model name of the drive. However, some external USB drives are nothing more than internal drives in an external case. In that case it might be possible to remove the drive from the case and install it in a computer.

Before I attempted this, however, I would visit the tech support area of La Cie's Web site, select your specific drive model, and see if they have any information related to your problem. I would also contact their customer support people to see if they have a solution before I attempted to open the case, which would no doubt void your warranty.

Submitted by: Robert S.

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Answer:

This may be the result of a number of things. I know from experience that external drives have not always been that great. I advise that you first update Windows. Certain external hard drives require a USB 2.0 Hi Speed driver which was not available in previous Windows versions. I believe with SP2 that driver was installed into the Windows OS. You may also have a redundant error in which the .Net Framework would fix it (this worked for me). The redundant error I faced was with an external optical drive. I would hear the USB sound that Windows makes when a device is connected but it would not be displayed in My Computer. When I switch it off it would make the USB sound Windows makes when its disconnected. I dont know why the .Net Framework worked. In case all else fails you may have to lobotomize your external hard drive. An external device is the component, such as an HD or optical drive that is attached to a circuit board that converts it into an IEEE or USB compatible device. You may need to remove the enclosure to access the HD. Then youll have to hook it up to your motherboard and let windows detect it. This is the worse case scenario; you should only do this if all else fails and the external device is damaged.

Submitted by: Haniff

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Answer:

Hey San L.,

Generally USB external HDDs (hard disk drives) will be recognized automatically as long as the proper USB drivers are installed. Since you recently formatted your boot drive, perhaps the USB drivers didn't get updated to their former condition.. XP needs to have at least SP-1 (Service Pack 1) installed for USB 2.0 to work well but while you're at it, you might as well install SP-2 to have all the more recent XP system files. And you will have to do an online Windows update to get all the very latest system files (be sure that your PC is protected before going online with at least a good software Firewall and AntiVirus software).

It is also possible that there are USB system updates available from your computer manufacturer or the manufacturer of the motherboard in it or the chipset on its motherboard (Intel, nVidia, Via, and SiS are the most common chipset makers). You can then look in the Device Manager to see if your USB ports are active and have no error flags. I'm pretty sure that once you have your USB port operation in order that your external HDD will be back as it always was with all your data intact.
. You could always hook your external HDD to a friend's computer to set your mind at ease that your data is fine while troubleshooting your USB port operation.

Submitted by: Bill H. of Groton, New York

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Answer:

The LaCie Drives can be tricky here. What I found with my 400 Gb LaCie Drive is that when it does this same thing (it only happened twice so far), is to turn all power off of the LaCie drive, actually even unplug the power cord from it. The plug it back it and fire it up. This seems to reset the drive for some reason. And my computer started seeing the external drive again. I hope this helps, it did work for me. Have a good day.

Submitted by: Gil T. of Anaheim, California

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Answer:

Regarding your LaCie external hard drive. I too have one of these devices and as you ran into a similar situation. I contacted LaCie's Technical Support Department and the gentleman told me to reformat the drive. I asked how I could do that if I couldn't get the drive to be recognized and told him even if it was recognized, I wouldn't want to reformat the drive because I'd lose all my data. The gentleman apologized and told me he misunderstood me.

He then told me to check my computer for any reference to LaCie by doing a search. If I found any reference to LaCie, I was to delete it to the recycle bin and then empty the bin. Then without plugging in the hard drive to the USB port I was to install the software they sent me with the unit. This way the USB port would not even attempt to recognize the drive as a new hardware item. I did as instructed and now my external hard drive is working.

The technician informed me that whenever any changes or upgrade work are to be performed on any computer system utilizing a LaCie unit (or for that matter any other USB storage device), the computer should be shut down with the unit installed. After the computer has shut down, then the USB cord should be disconnected from the USB port. The technician said that even though I pulled the USB wire, my motherboard still retained a link to the external hard drive and this is what might have caused my computer to lock up and refuse to recognize the drive at a later date.

Submitted by: Rick K.

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Answer:

This should be rather simple. Nothing went really wrong, I think. The probable cause it that your external drive is assigned a drive letter that already is in the used range(HD or CD/CVD). With all connected go to MY COMPUTER and right click on it, than select Manage from the list.

This will open e new window where you should select Disk Management(click on it). Select the external drive and right click on it and than Change drive letter and paths..

In the new window, click on CHANGE and than on the mark next to the actual drive letter.
From the now opened column you can select any of the free letters.

I always use either X.Y or Z for my externals such as USB sticks or even portable HDDs. After this you just close the lot and the drive will be visible again with all its date available, because you had it unplugged when formatting the other one so, all your data must be still there. Hope this does work out for you.

Submitted by: Jos V.

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Hello San L,

I hope I can help you with your questions. I will answer your questions in the order you asked them.

1. I guess you deleted the driver for your LaCie external harddisk with the reformatting. I don't know if you have a CD or something bit software for your external HDD? Because maybe your external HDD requires special software before it is recognized by a PC. If that is the case it explains why other PC's can't acces the external HDD as well. If that is not the case... well, then maybe you can reset the external HDD to factory settings. the manual way, if that is possible.

2. If it is only a driver issue you can prevent such an event by burning the driver on a CD or to save the driver on another PC before reformatting, or you can simply download again. If it is not a driver issue then maybe you should turn off the external HDD first and then unplug the USB cable from your PC and after that start formatting.

3. I use a My Book Premium from Western Digital myself and that comes whith special data recovery software, I don't know if you external HDD came with that software as well? If so, then it shouldn't be much of a problem to get your data back. Just run the software. If you don't have that software the only way I can imagine is accessing the external HDD but that seems to be the whole problem so I guess that is not much of an option.

I really hope that some of this answer will help you, if only a little bit. I'm sorry that I don't give very detailed answers but I'm not so common with LaCie drives. And I do also apologize for possible grammar errors since English is not my native language.

Best of luck with your problem, I hope it is solved soon!

Submitted by: Floris V. of the Netherlands

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Answer:

Dear San L.

I've experienced similar problems with LaCie external hard drives - the solution that has worked for me in the past has been to connect the drive as usual, but then disconnect and re-connect the power cord (whilst keeping the USB connection). This then 'initializes' the drive and it works normally. Give it a go - it has worked for me on a couple of machines.

Good luck,

Submitted by: Kevin T.

This is very easy to fix. I can't believe the answers you people gave this poor guy.

All he has to do is pull this up on Partition Magic and change it's visible view. IE: Primary or logical....

JimmyCarter.com

This is very easy to fix. I can't believe the answers you people gave this poor guy.

All he has to do is pull this up on Partition Magic and change it's visible view. IE: Primary or logical....

JimmyCarters.com

Not everything works as planned and some are darn near unexplainable.




Nothing about computers is unexplainable boy.

When I said, you wouldnt' be calling me boy if I was standing there, wasn't as it sounds and I should correct this. It wasn't meant as "say it to my face" type scenario, I simply mean I am FAR from being a BOY, and letting you know when you call someone BOY, you should first know if they are or not. That said, this will go nowhere anyway, so instead of degrading this thread, i'll leave it be. Same goes for my other reply as well.


Paul

I have used this for a long time, small, very good. Puts a gold ring on your desktop. Drink a cold one and click on it once in a while...

PS: I called him boy because I am way over twice his age and he is 35 sonny.

http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock/

I don't spend any time fooling around with trivia on the computer...

Save a drive image to an external hard drive that updates automatically and if you have trouble open partition magic and secure erase the hard drive partition that the operating system is on and click on restore drive and take a nap, when you get up your PC is perfect.
I have TWO Windows XP Home Editions, Windows XP Professional , and Windows Vista Beta all on the same 200 GB hard drive, all independent boots with boot magic which is external.

So if one of my computers didn't do an update autmatically even though I have the server set to synch on auto-pilot I would switch to an operating system that does and secure erase the corrupted system and take another nap...get it...your turn.

<<<I have deleted , formatted, deleted , formatted, partitioned into 20 partitions, turned off while open , dropped, formatted, created logical and primary drives, formatted, and on and on....

I spent a week doing everything I could possibly do to destroy my external hard drive and could not do it.>>>


Need a hobby? I see no common sense in this answer from a technical view or user wise. I would suppose you ran it over, dropped from airplane, and burned it and partition magic brought it back to life? Is that Freddy's secret? Perhaps Jason ? Partition the 13th? Nightmare on partition street?

Paul



Paul

Is telling someone to GET OUT OF BED AND WAKE UP a certain level of understanding? Was it appropriate? Perhaps YOU should be banned. If what you wrote doesn't seem hateful, you do have a different level of perception. Also, if you claim that thrashing the hard drive is some sort of industry testing, I can swallow that, but then please tell people you do this for a REASON, not just to thrash it. Think about how it sounds otherwise. If I wrote to others on here that I drilled through my hard drives to see if they would spin, it would sound a bit funny, unless for whatever reason I did it for a living for a company or something.

Paul

I'm not 'assigned' to this forum, but ask that you go to your own neutral corners. Like Paul, I tend to believe that not all problems can be fully explained and don't understand why you would subject a hard drive to abuse it's not meant to endure. However, those are not topics for this thread, or forum for that matter. Please just stick to the original issue...helping San with the external hard drive.

Now, Jimmy, in the future I'd refrain from referring to others as boy, kid, etc, as that implies a certain level of immaturity and/or inferiority. People of all ages, skill levels, and areas of expertise participate in these forums, but we like to treat everyone equally without negative connotations. Also, the photo in Lee's profile was taken just after his wife had their daughter...Lee took time off to take care of them and was exhausted. Your first comment (''Lee, get out of bed. Wake up.'') was not appropriate in my eyes, and such should be avoided in the future.

I hope this will be the end of this off-topic sub-thread.
John

Could you please direct me to the correct forum to ask about time synch? I have asked in Tips For computer Newbies.

What brand of power strip were you using?

The only brand of power protection that I will use on my systems is TrippLite. My two computers are connected to a TrippLite UPS. My external USB is connected to a TrippLite Isobar. My printers and office phone are connected to an Isotel. I also have TrippLite surge suppressors on my home entertainment equipment in my living room. This includes one on the incoming cable TV line.

I have been using TrippLite products for at least 10 years and have never had a problem with any of them.

It's very often to not installed USB 2.0 driver when WindowsXP just been clean installed. So you just need to do following list :
1: Fully Microsoft Updated;
2. Put your XP CD into CD drive and in Device Manager just open the question mark and select reinstall drivers. Let system choose automatically find the proper drivers from CD, then USB 2.0 drivers will be installed.
3. Plug your external HDD to USB port. That's all.