New Seagate Expansion External Drive not showing up in 'My Computer'

AstaLaVista said:

Again, as soon as I plug the drive in my Samsung or my rig, everything comes up so I know the drive is working

What is this "rig" you speak of?? Is it a Windows machine?

If it's a Windows machine, please run DISKMGMT.MSC and go to full-screen, and then spread the columns in the upper pane so we can see everything that's in the cells. Then take a screenshot and post it here.

If this drive is usable when directly connected to your HDTV, I wonder if it's been formatted with a "foreign" (Linux?) file system unrecognizable to your Windows laptop (is that XP or Win7?).

Have you used the drive on a Mac?

The fact that it shows no drive letter and no file system in your earlier screenshots, but asks you to FORMAT it when you right-click, that suggests it's not formatted in a way familiar to Windows.

Or, perhaps it's an odd FAT32 or something. Certainly a screenshot from that "rig" of yours where it "works" would be very informative for us to be able to help you.

essenbe said:

Perhaps that is correct. I really don't know what to tell you other than try updating your chipset drivers. It is obviously a problem with that computer as it works in others.

I don't think there are new chipset drivers for the IBM T42 laptop but I will look into it.

Thank

dsperber said:

AstaLaVista said:

Again, as soon as I plug the drive in my Samsung or my rig, everything comes up so I know the drive is working

What is this "rig" you speak of?? Is it a Windows machine?

My rig is my other Windows Desktop Computer... I also run Windows 7 on it but Ultimate and 64 bit.

My IBM T42 laptop run Win 7 Home Premium 32bit.

dsperber said:

If it's a Windows machine, please run DISKMGMT.MSC and go to full-screen, and then spread the columns in the upper pane so we can see everything that's in the cells. Then take a screenshot and post it here.

OK... see image attached

dsperber said:

If this drive is usable when directly connected to your HDTV, I wonder if it's been formatted with a "foreign" (Linux?) file system unrecognizable to your Windows laptop (is that XP or Win7?).

No linux, same drive I connect to my Win 7 Desktop gets connected to the HDTV, and it is also the same one connected to the laptop.

dsperber said:

Have you used the drive on a Mac?

No, never... I don't own a Mac.

dsperber said:

The fact that it shows no drive letter and no file system in your earlier screenshots, but asks you to FORMAT it when you right-click, that suggests it's not formatted in a way familiar to Windows.

I don't believe so, if I do the same on my Win 7 Desktop, the same choices or options are given. Well Open & Explore are also available and I don't have those when I plug it into the laptop.

dsperber said:

Or, perhaps it's an odd FAT32 or something. Certainly a screenshot from that "rig" of yours where it "works" would be very informative for us to be able to help you.

Nope, it is also an NTFS as you will see on the new screenshot.

Thanks for the help guys.

AstaLaVista said:

Nope, it is also an NTFS as you will see on the new screenshot.

Hmmm...

Here's an interesting note I found:

"Windows 7 32-bit operating systems are not capable of using drives larger than 2TB as a boot drive. You MAY be able to use a 2TB and larger drive as a data disk as long as your motherboard can address that size of disk. The motherboard MUST be equipped with EFI BIOS. Check with the manufacturer of your specific motherboard or the manufacturer of your computer to verify High-Capacity Drive Support before purchasing this drive."

In contrast:

"Windows 6 64-bit operating systems may use 2TB and larger drives as both a boot disk and/or a data disk. If you wish to boot from the disk the motherboard must be equipped with EFI BIOS. EFI BIOS is not required to use a high-capacity disk as a data drive."

Dang it... I knew I was better off installing ultimate 64 bit... oh well, I guess this is the end of the line for me.

I guess is time to invest on a small htpc and be done with this.

Thanks for the help.

whs said:

Understand, your choice. But with the next bit you may have the same setup problems.

As you say, when you know that stuff it is simple. But setting up a disk is normally no rocket science. Sorry I could not get you going. See you when you have the replacement disk.

Hey there whs. Maybe you could help me. I'm having the same problem as the thread starter. I don't really want to reformat and lose any data on my 1TB Seagate Expansion external hard disk. All the forums didn't give me any help. I've found this thread the only ray of light for my problem (until the thread starter gave up on his). Here, let me give you a screenshot of my Disk Management Window.

Disk 1 seems to be my problematic external drive without a drive letter assignment. Right clicking it yields grayed out options except "Delete Volume" and "Help".

I'd appreciate your help with this. It's giving me a pretty sweet headache. Thanks!

Hi ceesharp! Welcome to the forum!

Try using Diskpart within a command prompt to see what it has to say about that disk/volume. Here's an example of using it to check out info for some disks/volumes:



Post a screenshot of what you get and we'll see if we can help you out.

Will do that once I get back to my laptop/external drive. Thanks man!

Hey. Here's the screenshot of the Diskpart windows I'm currently on. I stopped at the "detail disk" command at disk 1 since I can't see the full 1TB.

From what I understand, it can only see that empty little 200MB chunk of my external drive. That 200MB space can be partitioned and detected when I tried the other day, by the way.

Here's the screenshot upon selecting "Volume 4" anyways. Hope this helps. Thank you for your support!

ceesharp said:

Hey. Here's the screenshot of the Diskpart windows I'm currently on. I stopped at the "detail disk" command at disk 1 since I can't see the full 1TB.

From what I understand, it can only see that empty little 200MB chunk of my external drive. That 200MB space can be partitioned and detected when I tried the other day, by the way.

Sorry. I just found out that the 200MB partition (Volume 4) is the EFI Partition. There's a 128MB unallocated space in the drive that can be partitioned but cannot be seen in the screenshot. Hope this helps. Thanks!