External Hard drive problems

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OnyXDragon11

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum, and I really need help... I have been searching the internet for weeks. I can't seem to find anything to help me, so I have come here in the hopes that I might find some form of anything....

I had an external drive. The case failed, so I took the drive out and got rid of the case. Now, I got a new case, and I put the drive in. I plug it into my computer, and my computer tells me that a drive has been installed. However it does not show up in my computer, or disk management. It does, however, show up in the device manager. There is not a yellow ! next to the device, and it says that it is working properly. What should I do? I would really prefer not to have to format it if there is a way around that, but if I HAVE to, I will to gain use of the drive back.

If this means anything to anyone, I am using a Macbook Pro with bootcamp installed, with windows XP pro with SP2. Any help would be completely appreciated. Thank you in advance.

OnyX
 
First, is this USB and have you tried other USB ports and does it come with a separate power adapter or a dongle to use 2 USB ports (2 for power and 1 for comm)?
 
Yes, it is usb, and it has a power source (hard drive enclosure). When I plug it in, I get the 2 tone noise indicating something usb has been plugged in. And yes, I have tried every usb port, to no avail. :(
 
What other USB and/or mapped drives do you have? Sounds like it may be having an identity problem?
 
I'm sorry, I am so computer illiterate. Mapped drive? would that be like...firewire and usb? I am not using any other usb disc drives, but I have a 500gb firewire drive. My mouse is also usb, and I guess...my ipod that I use as a hard disc? I only have 3 usb ports.
 
See, here's what sometimes happens.

You plug in the Ipod and it gets assigned drive letter E because A is the floppy (always) and B is a floppy (always) and C is the boot and D is the next HD and E is the cd/dvd and F would be either cd/dvd or the first thing you connect after E.

So, with the Ipod/Firewire unplugged the comp tries to assign the same letter to the USB/Firewire drive when you plug it in and Windows gets confused.

What I suggest to try first is to connect the Ipod and the Firewire drives and go into Disk Management and change their drive letters there ( right click the drive name):

If one is F and the other G, then change G to K and F to J, like that.

Then reboot and see if the USB drive can be connected and recognized.
 
ok, I did what you suggested, and I plugged it in again, and it came up with a little bubble with a bunch of characters my computer didn't know, so it showed up as boxes and stuff. Then is said usb device. Again, it shows up in device manager and says that it is working fine. I went to disk management, and it freezes now. It says "Still connecting, please wait..." but then it just goes to not responding. Still not showing up in my computer... :(
 
Disk Management freezes. It tries to go to the screen that gives you a list of all your drives and such, but it stays on a blank screen that says at the bottom "still trying to connect, please wait..."

Actually, I left it up for about 4 hours, and it FINALLY said "Your device has been installed and is ready to use" and disk management came up....but the drive wasn't in there. :(
 
How would I go about doing that? You mean clicking on the device and then clicking uninstall? Should I leave it plugged in while I reboot?
 
First time just uninstall it, pull the USB plug, and reboot. Once boot has finished try plugging it in.

It would be nice if that thing would show up in Windows Explorer!
 
ok, I did what you said, and when I plugged it back in, I got a message that said something like "one of the usb devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned."

there was more but I didn't get it all in time. Disk management doesn't freeze anymore, but it still doesn't show up. Also, now it shows up in device manager as Unknown Device. It says that no drivers are installed for the device.
 
Well, considering that the original problem was 'apparently' a case failure, it may well be that the drive itself was/is shot.

There are adapters available to connect 2 1/2" drives directly into your case and 3 1/2" ones should also fit.

That's the last thought I have.

Sorry -
 
If the disk appears in Device Manager normally but does not appear in Logical Disk Manager, not even as a blank volume, then there's a serious issue with the drive itself.

At the very least, try another machine.

At the very most, get a new drive.
 
all I really care about is the data on the drive at this point lol, I just got a new external, but there is quite a few things on there I would hate to lose... is there any way of getting the data off it it and on to a new drive?
 
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