Got a Acer laptop with Windows 7 for Christmas and previous had a computer with Windows XP. I had a external hard drive that when ever I connect to the computer it is automatically detected and will come up in My Computer. I went to connect my external drive last night and nothing as happened apart from whenever I connected the computer made a noise that something had been connected but there is nothing in My Computer. Any ideas what is wrong
Type 'Partition' into Windows Search, then your external hard drive should show as 'Disk 1'? Right click that and click 'Change letter and drive'. Change it to say D:/ and hopefully it should show in Windows Explorer.
Sometimes external USB drives require a power adapter as well as a USB feed, or they fail to spin properly or at all... the problem afflicts notebooks more commonly than PC's and can normally readily be cured by examining and optimising the connections to the external drive
My Computer
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom built machine
OS
W7 x64
CPU
Intel Q9300 2.5Ghz Quad LGA775 (Would like Q9650)
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3R (F6 Bios)
Memory
4Gb OCZ Gold 1,333Mhz
Graphics Card(s)
Palit HD4850 O/C Sonic 512Mb DDR3, Dual DViD's
Sound Card
Azalia to twin Samson 50w Studio Monitors
Monitor(s) Displays
Twin Dell (E-IPS) U2311H 23.6" Screens
Screen Resolution
1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz
Hard Drives
Crucial M4 SSD, archives on twin Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX, 2TB, 7200rpm HDD's, Samsung Ritemaster CD/DVD Burner...
PSU
OCZ 600w
Case
Lian-Li PC8 acoustifoamed' aluminium tower
Cooling
Scythe 140mm Zipang
Keyboard
Cherry PS/2 custom model
Mouse
Lenovo USB laser "Thinkpad" Mouse
Internet Speed
ADSL2+ @14Mbps downstream & Cat6 Gigabit Ethernet
Antivirus
NOD32
Browser
Opera
Other Info
Silicon Dust HD Homerun Dual FTA (Ethernet) TV Tuners, Dray Tek Vigor 2850Vn router and 8x HP Gigabit Switch. Lian-Li CR26 Card Reader, Canon MF4430 iSensys laser printer/scanner.
If you plug in a flash drive, a iPod for example, a message comes up on the PC saying it has detected new hardware.
I have another suggestion, insert the external hard drive into you PC and if necessary, connect it to power. Then type Disk Management and right click your external drive, if it says 1TB look for a hard drive with 1TB or 950GB, and select 'Make Active', then 'Select Letter Drive, and for the sake of argument, call it 'Z:/'. Does the computer now recognise the hard drive?
disconnect the external drive reboot your pc reconnect the external drive to a different USB port and see what happens
My Computer
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom Built
OS
Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit
CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Overclocked to 3.0Ghz
Motherboard
Biostar TF560 A2+
Memory
2 Gigs of G.Skill DDR2 800
Graphics Card(s)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro With IceQ cooler
Sound Card
6.1 Channel Sound Blaster Live 24 Bit
Monitor(s) Displays
Dual 20.5 " LG Flatrons W2052TO
Screen Resolution
1152x864
Hard Drives
Dual 36 Gig 10,000 RPM Raptors
PSU
430 watt Seasonic 80%+ Dual 12v Rails 2x80mm fans
Case
CHIEFMAX YA-5X
Cooling
4-80mm case fans 1-140mm case fan freezer 64 Pro CPU cooler
Keyboard
Saitek Eclipse II
Mouse
A4Tech wireless battery free optical scroll mouse
Internet Speed
1.5 meg down 384 up
Other Info
Logisys LED fan/light controller and dual 16" LED sticks mounted inside top of case all fans are LED all lighting is blue
DVD RW and CD RW both and Memory card reader
