External Hard Drive installed but not showing up on My Computer

[BmBranch]

I have a 120gb external HDD, I've connected it to my laptop and it has been used before but it is not showing up in My Computer. It is recognised by the computer and installs correctly and is visible on device manager and disk management, I've tried reformatting and this doesn't come up where it is supposed to. Is there a problem with the HDD or my computer? or is it something ridiculously simple. I'm running 32 bit Windows 7 Ultimate. Any help would be brilliant

 

[DocBrown]

Welcome BmBranch


In Disk Management, does it show that it has been assigned a drive letter. Can you right click on it & open it, & browse the HD to see what is on it ?

 

[BmBranch]

It has been assigned a drive letter and I can't seem to open it up in any possible way, as mentioned before it is not showing up in My Computer and the only options that come up when right clicking in disk management is properties and change drive letter

 

[fseal]

Does the disk manager say "Foreign Disk"?

If so you need to "Import Foreign Disk". It basically just doesn't want to add a possibly virus laden "outside" disk onto the system without your express consent. After you "import" it once it'll remember the disk ID and allow you to hot swap it from then on.

 

[DocBrown]

So you are saying Open & Explore are grayed out ?

 

[BmBranch]

I've attached a screen shot of the disk management screen. When right clicking the open option isnt even visible.

 

[BmBranch]

Also there is nothing about being a "foreign" disk

 

[DocBrown]

Your snip looks like the disk has not been initialized or that it is showing as a USB removable card / flash slot ? Here is a snip of my 80gb JAK Ext HD It also shows one of my USB card reader drives as empty (which it is a the moment) .

 

[BmBranch]

what do you suggest I do? I've tried pretty much everything

 

[DocBrown]

Has it been tested with any other computers ? What is the make & model of it ?

 

[whs]

I've attached a screen shot of the disk management screen. When right clicking the open option isnt even visible.

Assign a drive letter to the disk (first option shown on your snip). Without a drive letter, your disk will be "invisible".

 

[sreedhav]

Dear BmBranch,
I have read about a similar prob.'a while ago!

These probs. are more common when using Laptops which have card readers!

For ex: C:/ is your primary partition,

D:/ is either a logical or a CDrom drive and

E:/ is your Card reader and

the EXTN.HDD fights for the same drive letter as your card reader.

So,assign a drive letter in "Disk management" to the EXTN.HDD by a Rt.click on it,and choose "CHANGE DRIVE LETTER and choose a higher drive letter like M. Reboot and check!

The other scenario is a malware contamination!

Kindly run an online anti-virus scan---> Housecall , for ex. :HouseCall - Free Online Virus Scan - Trend Micro USA,

super antispyware scan with it's PORTABLE SCANNER(as it does not need updating) : SUPERAntiSpyware.com | Remove Malware | Remove Spyware - AntiMalware, AntiSpyware, AntiAdware!

Malware antimalwarebytes(MBAM) : malwarebytes.org

Last but most importantly,run an anti-rootkit : Rootkit Buster http://downloadcenter.trendmicro.com/index.php?clk=tbl&clkval=355&regs=NABU&lang_loc=1#undefined

Let us all know how things have panned out! I hope you hit paydirt!

Regards,
Sreedhav

 

[BmBranch]

Update: I have tried all of the above suggestions. I have assigned a new drive letter, it has been tested on other computers, I have ran a virus scan, anti-malware and spyware scans and an anti-rootkit scan and still the hard drive does not work. Any other suggestions?

 

[fseal]

It may be that the USB/ATAPI interface hardware may not have a proper driver built into windows 7. Do you have a different W7 machine you can try it on? Did it come with a driver disk? (I know normally that isn't needed, most USB drives use a VERY small number of interface chips that are well supported)

Could be that a driver update is needed to get full functionality out of that external drive... Might be hard to find one, but start with the drive manufacturer's site, if they don't have anything then we can look up the VID/PID of the USB device and find out what it is then to directly to the chip manufacturers site and see if they have one.

 

[sreedhav]

what do you suggest I do? I've tried pretty much everything

Dear BmBranch,
see if the EXTN.HDD is detached from it's external casing, that can be set right by attaching it back to the casing! Try it!
Regards,
Sreedhav

 

[BmBranch]

The HDD is correctly fitted into the casing and the HDD is still inoperable

 

[kemseven]

Thank you very much DocBROWN It is really working do mine. Keep it up Sevenforums is good services

 

[kemseven]

Great news with seven forms

So you are saying Open & Explore are grayed out ?

Thank you very much It is working for me do it
Keep it up SEVENFORUMS