Seagate Drive Not Available

Ok so recently have upgraded to Windows & Ultimate on a Samsung HDD, and copied ALL necessary information that i needed to a Seagate HDD before the format. The Seagate was formatted on the XP install with NTFS, and data copied to it. Now after the install the primary(Samsung works fine), but the Seagate where all my information is does not come up in my computer. At start up, it does pick up both drives, and in Device manager it says( ST9120822AS SCSI Disk), and in Disk Manager, it does show, and is healthy and says something like backup partion/recovery partition or something to that effect, but there is no drive letter. When I right click on the drive the only thing that comes up is Help, no option to assign a drive letter. The Seagate drive capacity shows 111,9/120 Gigs, which means there is data there.

Now I did have the motherboard drivers but those didn't have anything for windows 7, as it came out later, and i did install them. I have recently downloaded the drivers and will install them when I get home. If the drivers aren't an issue what could it be?

Hello Vengeful and welcome to the Forum. You might see if this will work:

1. Plug in the external hard drive
2. Open Device Manager
3. Expand the USB list
4. Find the USB device for your USB Hard Drive (in my case it was the one that had no description)
5. Right mouse click > Uninstall
6. Unplug external hard drive and restart computer
7. Plug external hard drive back in and let Windows 7 find/install the driver
8. See if external hard drive is recognized/works.

Another possibility:

1. Plug in the external USB hard drive
2. Right mouse click on Computer
3.Left click on Manage
4.Double click on Storage
5.Double click on Dick Management
6.Disk 0 is Hard Drive Partitions
Disk 1 will display the SIZE of the external device with no name
7. Right mouse click the BLUE BAR on Disk 1
8.Left click on Mark Partition as Active
9.Left click on Change Drive Letter and Paths
10.Right click the “Add” button - Right click OK
11. The external USB device should now have a drive letter

Really sorry, should have mentioned this is not an external HDD, its a Laptop internal Drive, but obviously can be used in any PC cos of the SATA connectors.

Vengeful said:

Really sorry, should have mentioned this is not an external HDD, its a Laptop internal Drive, but obviously can be used in any PC cos of the SATA connectors.

If your running windows 7 it has this annoying glitch of not assigning drive letters to secondary drives sometimes. The drive will be there but Windows did not assign it a drive letter and therefor it does not show up, its been around since the beta and they never chose to fix it lol. Follow marsmimar's instructions and get into disk managment, once there you should see 2 drives, and one will not be assigned a drive letter. Right click the drive that is not showing up and choose Assign a drive letter, Choose a drive letter and click ok. The drive should show up immediately.

Not sure, but I have a suspicion that you both didnt read my original post WHERE it CLEARLY states that when I RIGHT CLICK there IS NO OPTION to assign a drive letter.

Vengeful said:

Not sure, but I have a suspicion that you both didnt read my original post WHERE it CLEARLY states that when I RIGHT CLICK there IS NO OPTION to assign a drive letter.

I read your original post where you said there was no option to assign a drive letter. In my second option I specifically mentioned trying to right click on the blue bar of Disk 1 (not Disk 0.) Please keep in mind we're trying to offer suggestions without benefit of sitting in front of your computer and seeing what you're seeing.

Have you checked for damaged or corrupt system files by running System File Checker? If any problems are found run the scan at least 3 times.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker