External Hard Drive Not Detected

[Sfraser]

Jorikirk,

Just like Shorty920, I also registered solely to say thanks. It was exactly a power issue with my external HD, and once I followed your advice about powering up the drive first and then connecting it to the USB port, the OS finally recognized the drive. Thanks so much for the help.

 

[jorikirk]

Sfraser, so glad. another yeehaw for sharing solutions!

 

[sabkt]

External Drive

I have same problem, bought an external hard drive of samsung, it was working fine but i think since last window update it is not showing in drives. i was thinking that there is something wrong with my pc ,but now i learned half world is dancing with this problem.
I also have another problem , and that is here : i dont find printers often and then i start system again and again then they appear..printer means i have pdf writer/office/and efax

 

[Johnny577]

I just bought Seagate 1TB put it in a Perfectly working 3.5 external case and i cant seem to get it to show up on XP or Windows 7 is there something i need to do to this drive before i just put it in there and go

thaks for any time and info you give me

 

[Golden]

Hi,

How is the external enclosure connected to the PC?

Golden

 

[DocBrown]

If it is a bare raw unformatted HD, it needs to be initalized & formatted.

Look for it in disk management

Start :ar: Computer Management :ar: Disk Management

 

[Johnny577]

external USB 2.0 it wants me to

Select Partition Type

Primary Partition
or
Extended Partition
its only going to be external what one should i choos please thanks i found it in there right away

 

[DocBrown]

I always use primary

 

[Johnny577]

do you know of a page i can read and how to partition the drive with more then 4 partitions please isthere a way thakns

 

[Lestat54]

I bought a new external hard drive today and although windows 7 initially picked it up and tried to install the drivers when this failed (unknown error without an error number) the drive disappeared and is not showing anywhere not even disk management is picking it up.
Any ideas on this as I tried disconnecting the USB hub and plugging the drive straight into the laptop. I have 2 other external hdd's which are detected without any issues. I'm currently tearing what's left of my hair out.

 

[toglenn]

Same Problem, Two Drives with Same Letter

I also had the same problem but was able to fix it. I discovered that my card reader had reserved drives even though they were not displayed in Windows 7 Explorer. In my case it was two drives with the letter L: (drive). After changing the external drive to N: drive the problem went away.

If you're running a card reader you might want to check which drives it has reserved.

 

[Lestat54]

It was a faulty lead supplied with the hard drive, I tried everything else I could think of including the hints you and others had given me (and some other people who had the same problem) when I changed the USB lead the drive was recognised straight away and is now working superbly. Thanks to you and everyone else who tried to help me with this problem.

 

[CosmicSuperstar]

External Seagate Hard Drive not detected by Windows 7 64Bit

Hi there! I have a very strange problem lately. All of a sudden my external Seagate Hard Drive 320 GB SATA is NOT Showing up in the My Computer page. It was working fine earlier. I have checked the USB port which is working fine with my Pen Drive. Even the red light in the external hard drive is ON but it is not being detected by my computer. The drive was an internal laptop hard drive which was converted to an external hard drive by covering it with a Casing. It does not have any other power source input other than being connected to a laptop via a cable thru a USB port. It was working fine earlier. My system is a Dell Studio laptop 1558 64 Bit with Windows Home Premium installed. PLEASE HELP!!!

I went to the Properties of all USB Root Hubs/Generic USB Hubs and unchecked the Power Management option of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". All drivers are up to date. Still it is not detecting the hard drive. I know the hard drive is fine because the light is on whenever I connect it to the USB port, also it was working perfectly earlier. Is a Windows update the culprit? Or could it be the Tweaking Softwares which tune up the Windows OS to speed up the system? What exactly is the issue here? And I can see that I am not the only one facing this problem with my Windows 7, half the world has the same problem! PLEASE HELP!!! ANYONE?

 

[CosmicSuperstar]

Seagate external hard drive not being detected by the Dell laptop

Hi there! I have a very strange problem lately. All of a sudden my external Seagate Hard Drive 320 GB SATA is NOT Showing up in the My Computer page. It was working fine earlier. I have checked the USB port which is working fine with my Pen Drive. Even the red light in the external hard drive is ON but it is not being detected by my computer. The drive was an internal laptop hard drive which was converted to an external hard drive by covering it with a Casing. It does not have any other power source input other than being connected to a laptop via a cable thru a USB port. It was working fine earlier. My system is a Dell Studio laptop 1558 64 Bit with Windows Home Premium installed. PLEASE HELP!!!

I went to the Properties of all USB Root Hubs/Generic USB Hubs and unchecked the Power Management option of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". All drivers are up to date. Still it is not detecting the hard drive. I know the hard drive is fine because the light is on whenever I connect it to the USB port, also it was working perfectly earlier. Is a Windows update the culprit? Or could it be the Tweaking Softwares which tune up the Windows OS to speed up the system? What exactly is the issue here? And I can see that I am not the only one facing this problem with my Windows 7, half the world has the same problem! PLEASE HELP!!! ANYONE?

 

[marsmimar]

Hello CosmicSuperstar and welcome to Seven Forums.

I understand that the USB port is working when another device is plugged in ( a pen drive.) Have you tried plugging the external Seagate into a different USB port? If still no joy you might see if it somehow got changed to a "hidden device".

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77614-device-manager-hidden-devices.html

 

[CosmicSuperstar]

Hi Marsmimar,

Thanks for your reply. I tried the steps given in your Hidden Devices link, and changed the View Option of the Device Manager, but the External drive is still not showing up. It does not show up anywhere. The ports are all fine, the drive is also fine.....I suspect it is an issue of some windows setting or firmware. Still need help to solve this issue!

 

[marsmimar]

Can you post a screenshot of your Disk Management so we can see how your hard drive(s) are set up? Leave the external Seagate plugged in when you open disk management. You can open the Start menu and type Disk Management into the search field, or type diskmgmt.msc (either one should open it.) Then you can use this tutorial on how to post a screenshot in Seven Forums.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[CosmicSuperstar]

Trying to upload the screenshot

 

[CosmicSuperstar]

Here is the Disc Management screenshot

 

[marsmimar]

This is a puzzler. I did some more digging and found this Seagate knowledge base article about troubleshooting an external hard drive that isn't being recognized. Perhaps it will shed some light on why your drive isn't being seen.

Troubleshooting a Seagate or Maxtor external hard drive that isn't found in Windows