Windows 7 failing to pick up External Hard Drive

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Simple problem really, but no idea where to start with fixing it.

On my old Vista laptop I used an External Hard Drive, with 80GB advertised memory. It is a sumvision enclosure. It uses a Mini-USB to 2 USB connection wire, with one called "Assistant Power" This cable is the one it came with. On Vista, this picked up and worked perfectly.

Now, Windows 7 and my Christmas present PC, and it's not picking up. It's all plugged in, it's been plugged into two back ports, two front ports, two extension ports plugged into a front port and two extension ports plugged into a back port.

The first time I plugged it in a bubble came up at the bottom taskbar saying it had installed device driver software and was good to go. It never picked up.

I have re-started, and re-started with and without it plugged in. No luck either way.

Can anybody help me please, because we need to get these files off that laptop as soon as we can, but I'm not going to do that until they're on this PC, for obvious reasons.

Thanks,
Callum.

Minotar · Dec 27, 2009

Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management>Disc Management>Right click External HD>Change Drive letters and Paths>assign a letter.

This should work if your device manager can pick up your HD.

Dan

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Thankyou very much for your quick reply, but unfortunately it's not showing up in Disk Management.

Minotar · Dec 27, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
Thankyou very much for your quick reply, but unfortunately it's not showing up in Disk Management.

Hmm,what about device manager?

Can you download partition wizard home edition and see if it can see it?
Free Download Partition Wizard

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Thanks again, but Partition Wizard doesn't detect it at all. Device Manager is somewhat confusing, but I've not seen it in there.

Minotar · Dec 27, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
Thanks again, but Partition Wizard doesn't detect it at all. Device Manager is somewhat confusing, but I've not seen it in there.

Hmmm,do other devices work via your USB ports?

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
Thanks again, but Partition Wizard doesn't detect it at all. Device Manager is somewhat confusing, but I've not seen it in there.

Welcome MC to Windows 7 Support Forums,
Since this is an external HD there is a possibility that a driver needs updating or you need to enable USB within the bios, as my esteemed colleague has suggested is to use disk manager to see if the drive has been allocated or assigned a drive letter. I'm attaching a screenshot from device manager to see how the hard drive may appear.

Regards,
Adrian

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

They do. Currently, one back port is connected to a 7 USB Port hub. This has been used time and time again in the past, and I have just checked that a USB pen works in each drive. All successful. I have just tested both front ports with the same pen, perfectly. The receiver for my wireless mouse and keyboard is also plugged into the 7 Port hub, and works flawlessly.

Thanks again.

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Adrian said:
mcintyre94 said:

Thanks again, but Partition Wizard doesn't detect it at all. Device Manager is somewhat confusing, but I've not seen it in there.

Click to expand...

Welcome MC to Windows 7 Support Forums,
Since this is an external HD there is a possibility that a driver needs updating or you need to enable USB within the bios, as my esteemed colleague has suggested is to use disk manager to see if the drive has been allocated or assigned a drive letter. I'm attaching a screenshot from device manager to see how the hard drive may appear.

Regards,
Adrian

Thankyou very much for your help. I have gone through all the high-lighted parts of Device Manager, and right click-update drivers. No luck, and everything was updated.

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

Image

Mc, attached are some images for you to view.
The imafes are of an external Hard Drive using a USB connection attached to a Window 7 PC, they show the drivers, in device manager, the My Computer image shows the drive assigned letter and so on.
I suggest the following,
use your device manager and view and see where the external drive installed the drivers and see if it even shows up and un-install it and re-boot then power off, connect the drive and see if Windows 7 detects the drive as new hardware and attempts to install it again.

Regards,
Adrian

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Mine is not picking up any "USB Mass Storage" or a second disc in Device Manager.

Attached is my Device Manager window. Currently the External Hard Drive is plugged into the two front USBs, if that means anything.

Thanks again to all who have helped so far.

Minotar · Dec 27, 2009

Whats the device with the yellow triangle?
Does it go away if you plug the HD out?
Have you tried another Port?

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

There is no visible difference to either Disk or Device Management if I plug in and out the Hard Drive. Now tested in a few combinations of extension ports, the two front and two at the back. No luck under any configuration.

I assume the yellow triangle is "Co-processor" under Other Devices, and sorry but I honestly don't have a clue what that is.

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
There is no visible difference to either Disk or Device Management if I plug in and out the Hard Drive. Now tested in a few combinations of extension ports, the two front and two at the back. No luck under any configuration.

I assume the yellow triangle is "Co-processor" under Other Devices, and sorry but I honestly don't have a clue what that is.

Mc, Minotaur is pointing out that you have a dual core or quad core which is not recognised by your motherboard, this also could be the reason that your USB ports may not be able to recognise the external drive, I would suggest you go to your MOBO source and investigate if you have newer bios updates and newer chipset drivers. I'll also google and see if I can point you in the right direction .

Adrian

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

MOBO Specs

Here is a link to your MOBO specs.
ASRock > Products > K10N78-1394

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

Updates

Mc, attached is an image from the Asrock support site for your MOBO, the latest bios version is less than a month old. I suggest that you reflash your bios with the latest version. Make sure you backup your existing bios in case you have issues. You can either use a floppy to reflash or a pendrive.
Here is the link: ASRock > Products > Motherboard > K10N78 > Download
The link is directly for windows 7 OS.

Regards,
Adrian

mcintyre94 · Dec 27, 2009

Aah thankyou very much guys! I'll install update highlighted in a moment. Is a system restore an adequate backup, or should I be doing something else? I've never really done this stuff before.

Create a bootable system USB pen drive.
Download an updated ASRock BIOS file (WinZip format with .zip file extension) from the web site, unzip the BIOS file and save all files to the drive you created in step 1.
Boot from the disk you created in step 2.
At the "A:\" prompt, type BIOSfile.exe, then press <Enter>. For example: A:\P55DX_1.60.exe <Enter> then you will see a message "Please wait for BIOS loading ROM".
After 30 seconds, you will see the message "Program ended normally", then you have finished upgrading the BIOS.
After finishing upgrading the BIOS, restart your system and press <F2> to enter the BIOS setup utility during boot up.
In Exit menu, please select "Load Default Settings" and press <Enter> to continue.
Select "Exit Saving Changes" and press <Enter> to exit the BIOS setup utility.
Now, system is booting up with new BIOS.

Is this correct?

Adrian · Dec 27, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
Aah thankyou very much guys! I'll install update highlighted in a moment. Is a system restore an adequate backup, or should I be doing something else? I've never really done this stuff before.

Create a bootable system USB pen drive.
Download an updated ASRock BIOS file (WinZip format with .zip file extension) from the web site, unzip the BIOS file and save all files to the drive you created in step 1.
Boot from the disk you created in step 2.
At the "A:\" prompt, type BIOSfile.exe, then press <Enter>. For example: A:\P55DX_1.60.exe <Enter> then you will see a message "Please wait for BIOS loading ROM".
After 30 seconds, you will see the message "Program ended normally", then you have finished upgrading the BIOS.
After finishing upgrading the BIOS, restart your system and press <F2> to enter the BIOS setup utility during boot up.
In Exit menu, please select "Load Default Settings" and press <Enter> to continue.
Select "Exit Saving Changes" and press <Enter> to exit the BIOS setup utility.
Now, system is booting up with new BIOS.

Click to expand...

Is this correct?

What you have there is correct, You should have in your bios a way to save the existing version.

mcintyre94 · Dec 29, 2009

Thanks to everyone for your help, my dad's trying one more thing before we adjust the BIOS. I've sorted the problem temporarily with another hard drive I got my hands on (which worked perfectly), but my dad wants to try something quickly first.

Thanks again, and I'll rep everyone who helped now.

Minotar and Adrian, thanks so much!

Adrian · Dec 30, 2009

mcintyre94 said:
Thanks to everyone for your help, my dad's trying one more thing before we adjust the BIOS. I've sorted the problem temporarily with another hard drive I got my hands on (which worked perfectly), but my dad wants to try something quickly first.

Thanks again, and I'll rep everyone who helped now. Minotar and Adrian, thanks so much!

Cheers Matey!

Windows 7 failing to pick up External Hard Drive

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