External Drive not recognized in 'My Computer'

A

anais4uk

Geek Trainee
Hello came across this forum whilst searching for answers on the net. Hope someone out there can help me out here as I haven't a clue what to do next. Heres my problem:

I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200 GB External Hard Drive which has been working fine until yesterday when all of a sudden the drive became unreadable. This has happened before, some time ago and I ended up loosing all my data as the only way out was a format. I formated the drive again last night to get it up and running again and it worked fine until today when after booting up my computer the external drive is no longer showing up in 'My Computer'. It is recognized in Device Manager but I cannot find it anywhere else. Can anyone help me out please?

Best wishes Anais
 
Does it appear in the BIOS? and do you have any other USB devices that don't appear in My Computer when connected?
 
Thank you for you fast response NeloForster. I have just connected my digital camera on the same usb and that was recognized. How would I check for it in my BIOS? I am running windows XP.

Many thanks
 
Well getting into the BIOS is different dependant on your motherboard... Sometimes you have to keep hitting delete when you start your PC up, or sometimes it's one of the F keys. When your PC does its power on self test with all the writing on the (usually) black screen it might say "press * to enter setup" where * is the key you need to press... Whilst in the BIOS go to primary master/slave and see if your HDD model appears in there if you can...
 
I have just gone into BIOS and Primary master shows my internal hard drive, Primary slave shows [none]. I went into primary slave > Auto detection > pressed enter > still nothing :(
 
anais4uk said:
I have just gone into BIOS and Primary master shows my internal hard drive, Primary slave shows [none]. I went into primary slave > Auto detection > pressed enter > still nothing
Click to expand...
I think u will find that in external devices....
 
Sorry but I am quite a novice with technical side of things.......I could not see external devices in my BIOS only Primary master........primary slave........secondary master..........secondary slave. Am I missing something? or maybe I was not in the right place?
 
anais4uk said:
Sorry but I am quite a novice with technical side of things.......I could not see external devices in my BIOS only Primary master........primary slave........secondary master..........secondary slave. Am I missing something? or maybe I was not in the right place?
Click to expand...
I think we are on the wrong side....coz v dnt have to setup the boot priority... V just need to check if its detecting your HDD or not... So instead of BOOT, check somewhere in advanced or something. I cant remember the exact place but I know that Boot is not the right place...:doh:
Also, what exactly happens when you connect your HDD with your computer?? I mean, any USB connection voice?? Which external HDD u've got?? 2.5"(Laptops) or 3.5"(Desktop)??
 
NeloForster said:
Does it appear in the BIOS? and do you have any other USB devices that don't appear in My Computer when connected?
Click to expand...

Sorry I was just following the above advice :) When I connect my HDD to computer there is USB sound, it shows up in Device Manager, but cannot find it anywhere else. I am using HDD in external casing.
 
Have you tried plugging a USB device into the same USB port? Also check the USB cable you use to link the external HDD to the USB port. Is there any damage? Are you able to change the cable to test if it's that which is faulty? Just a few things worth trying...

Mike
 
Anais4uk said:
When I connect my HDD to computer there is USB sound, it shows up in Device Manager,
Click to expand...
After connecting your HDD
RightClick MyComputer > Manage > Disk Management
Can you see your HDD here?? SPecifically look at the Right hand side bottom of Disk Management...


Edit:
A4uk said:
I am using HDD in external casing.
Click to expand...
Reason y i asked you this question because there is a HDD inside that enclosure, so if its a 3.5" HDD then you can jst opens up the case and hook that HDD with your desktop machine, unless that HDD is a SATA or SCSI which your mobo doesnt support Nd i really doubt this coz most of the External HDD's are ATA...
 
NeloForster said:
Have you tried plugging a USB device into the same USB port? Also check the USB cable you use to link the external HDD to the USB port. Is there any damage? Are you able to change the cable to test if it's that which is faulty? Just a few things worth trying...

Mike
Click to expand...

Yes I plugged my digital camera into the same port and that worked fine although it did use a different cable. The cable I am using for the external drive on inspection looks fine, I will have to purchase another cable to test whether or not it is faulty.
 
Karanislove said:
After connecting your HDD
RightClick MyComputer > Manage > Disk Management
Can you see your HDD here?? SPecifically look at the Right hand side bottom of Disk Management...


Edit:

Reason y i asked you this question because there is a HDD inside that enclosure, so if its a 3.5" HDD then you can jst opens up the case and hook that HDD with your desktop machine, unless that HDD is a SATA or SCSI which your mobo doesnt support Nd i really doubt this coz most of the External HDD's are ATA...
Click to expand...

In Disk management I cannot see my HDD there..............nothing at right hand side bottom of disk management either... Yes I could just open up the case and hook the HDD into the desktop machine but that would take some time and I thought there may be an easier way around it.

Thanks for bearing with me on this one....
 
A4uk said:
In Disk management I cannot see my HDD there..............nothing at right hand side bottom of disk management either...
Click to expand...
Try using a different USB port.... Also make sure that there is no disconnection with the Power of that external enclosure...

A4uk said:
Yes I could just open up the case and hook the HDD into the desktop machine but that would take some time and I thought there may be an easier way around it.
Click to expand...
That was just to make sure that there is no problem with your HDD....
 
Karanislove said:
Try using a different USB port.... Also make sure that there is no disconnection with the Power of that external enclosure...
Click to expand...

I have connected to a different port....still nothing. There is no disconnection of power to the external enclosure. Also went into computer management and done rescan disks...it appears to be accessing the external drive because the red light keeps coming on as if it is being read....but still not detected external HDD....it seemed to be scanning for quite some time is this normal?
 
A4uk said:
it appears to be accessing the external drive because the red light keeps coming on as if it is being read....but still not detected external HDD....it seemed to be scanning for quite some time is this normal?
Click to expand...
Not sure exactly but i think your HDD have generated some bad sectors.... Can you Hook that HDD inside your computer and use "chkdisk" to see if there are any bad sectors or something...??
 
Karanislove said:
Not sure exactly but i think your HDD have generated some bad sectors.... Can you Hook that HDD inside your computer and use "chkdisk" to see if there are any bad sectors or something...??
Click to expand...

Yes I will have to do that tomorrow as it is getting quite late I will update this thread with my findings tomorrow some time.....many thanks for your help and for being patient with me.

Best wishes Anais
 
Before I leave for the night.....just wanted to mention that I have noticed that when I turn the external drive on there is USB sound (which indicates it has found the drive) then after a couple of seconds the sound repeats as if I have disconnected the drive.....have you any idea why this is happening?
 
Anais said:
Before I leave for the night.....just wanted to mention that I have noticed that when I turn the external drive on there is USB sound (which indicates it has found the drive) then after a couple of seconds the sound repeats as if I have disconnected the drive.....have you any idea why this is happening?
Click to expand...
I think this usually happens, if particular USB device
1. Doesnt find the drivers to run on the computer
2. If there is any problem in the device....
3. If USB port is not able to provide enough power to run the device...
 
I thought I would try one last thing before logging off. I uninstalled the external drive from device manager then reinstalled it. It has now decided to at last show up in 'My Computer' but it won't let me access it. I am getting the error 'I:\ is not accessible, Access is denied. Does this mean I will once again have to format the drive?
 
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