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afterdawn.com > forums > pc hardware > other pc hardware > external harddrive not showing as a letter (usb)
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External harddrive not showing as a letter (USB)
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Zer0ink
Member
_ 		29. June 2006 @ 13:55 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Parts

3.5" USB 2.0 Hard Drive External Case SATA + IDE w/ Fan

http://www.gizmo-link.com/images/hd35_sata_b.jpg


and

DiamondMax 10 SATA/150 120Gig Harddrive

and

Computer WinXP: Ultra ATA 133 hardrives, USB2

Problem:

When turning on or plugging external into computer the computer makes that "Too Doo" sound that XP makes when something gets connected however no letter gets assigned to the external drive.

Doesnt show up under my computer or Disk Management

Does show up in Device Manager under USB Controllers - USB Mass Storage Device and shows up in the Safly Remove Hardware Iconin system tray.

Tried 3 computers same results

Tried a Ultra ATA 133 and Serial ATA 150 with same results

Any serious suggests to make device successfully operational?
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codydog
Member
_ 		29. June 2006 @ 19:19 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I see it came with a driver. Did you put the driver in first, then connect when it asked? If you did, go to a command prompt, type>Set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, hit enter, then type>Start devmgmt.msc. No period at the end. Then when the device manager loads, go to the top and under view, select show hidden devices. What this does is show what is ghosting in the device manager. Look under universal serial bus controllers, anything that is pale grey, that you know is not right may be suspect. If you see the HDD name, right click the name select uninstall. I would do this for allof the grey devices in usb. At worse you will have to put the identifying driver back in. Don't uninstall any of the usb controllers, unless you suspect them, and know how to reinstall the driver for them, just in case they are legacy. Maybe this will help.
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Zer0ink
Member
_ 		30. June 2006 @ 13:32 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I did as you said and the device shows up as USB Mass Storage Device

The device shows grey when off and not greyed when on.

Still no letter being designated.

Thanks for your effort.

Gonna try another hard drive one more time. Then a different enclosure. I have a feeling the enclosure may be defective.

Any other ideas well be accepted gratefully.
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Zer0ink
Member
_ 		30. June 2006 @ 14:04 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Hooked up another hard drive (ide) and pinned it right this time and the enclosure worked fine.

Must be the Serial ATA drive is messed up. At least I now know the culprit.

Thanks for your effort.
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gmoyer60
Newbie
_ 		30. June 2006 @ 14:24 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
In Windows XP, on the desktop, right click on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Storage, then click on disk Management. any connected external drive via USB should show up there.(including every drive in your computer. Roms and hard
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scorpNZ
AfterDawn Addict

4 product reviews
_ 		30. June 2006 @ 14:29 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
The reason you have no drive letter me thinks is you have not formatted and created a partition,find in your comp "computer management", clik on "disk management" by rights it will show up there and you should be able to create the partition or better still go get symantec partition magic v8.0 it's an excellant software,ignore the symantec knockers ,if any of them post in here and put partmagic down they are ignorant and have no experiance with the suggested software ,for more help and advice go here,the first link is for radified forums and where you need to get too, the second link is in case the first don't work and look for "rad forum" at near top right ,these guy's specialise in the area you are having grief with

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi
http://radified.com/index2.html

after creating the partition you may have to restart the comp
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 30. June 2006 @ 14:50
yellowsub
Junior Member
_ 		30. June 2006 @ 20:37 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
You should have a disc that came with your hard drive. Once you have installed the hard drive in the case connect it to the computer through USB or firewire. Insert the disc that came with your HD and it will walk you through formating it, then XP will recognize the drive. It is really that simple.
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lotusdog
Newbie
_ 		1. July 2006 @ 17:28 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
hello i have a very similiar problem but i don't hav Xp and i have a western digital 250 gb SATA drive in an i-rocks 9400 HDD sata enclosure and i think i plugged it all in before i installed the driver cause i thought it didn't come with a driver at first and that i would not need it. any way when i install the reccomended driver after uninstalling the initial setup it says that there is an error because device was not designated and when i install the other available driver that was found the usb mass storage device driver it says everything is cool but nothing shows up. and i do not understnd the the fixes for the above solution and i am not sure if i should have started a new thread since this is like a new post, but it is similiar and the above problem was solved. i have windows 2000

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Become the change you wish to see in the world-Ghandi www.myspace.com/karnyval
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lotusdog
Newbie
_ 		1. July 2006 @ 19:14 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
for anyone in my shoes "view" the "disk list", "write signature", then "partition" and that should then proceed to assighning a letter to the drive, and formatting the drive.
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Become the change you wish to see in the world-Ghandi www.myspace.com/karnyval
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