Windows only sees part of external USB drive.

[Halfbaked]

I have a new 1 Tb. Western Digital hard drive in a Rosewill USB/eSATA enclosure that I want to use for back up.
When I turn on the enclosures power switch I see an icon in the taskbar and when I hover the mouse pointer over it it says 'Safely remove hardware and eject media'.
However, when I right click on it I get a box that says 'Open device and printers'.
I click on that and the Device and Printers page opens but is empty. I have tried to find the USB device but it doesn't show up anywhere.
I'm worried that I can damage my motherboard or back up drive if I just keep turning the power off.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
Halfbaked

 

[whs]

Did you ever initialize and format that drive? If not, you won't see it.

 

[Halfbaked]

Yes and Yes.
I see the drive when I go to Computer>Open.
But I don't see the USB eject .
Thanks.

 

[baarod]

Yes and Yes.
I see the drive when I go to Computer>Open.
But I don't see the USB eject .
Thanks.

Excuse me? Open the drive and right click for properties. Take a screen shot and get back to me... Seems odd

 

[WindowsStar]

I have a new 1 Tb. Western Digital hard drive in a Rosewill USB/eSATA enclosure that I want to use for back up.

Is it USB or eSATA connected??

 

[Halfbaked]

I hope this is what you were asking for.

The drive is connected via USB until I can find out why it doesn't work with eSATA.
Thanks.
Halfbaked

edit:
This I just noticed. Not only is the external drive not showing up in Devices and Printers, but neither is my printer, which is turned on and works.
As for the external drive, when I turn it on I get the icon in the taskbar for Safely Remove....Thanks.

 

[Halfbaked]

"As for the external drive, when I turn it on I get the icon in the taskbar for Safely Remove..."

I think I should have also stated that the problem still exists.
I have always been able to see the icon in the task bar when I turn on the external drive, via USB, but when I click on it I am not given the option of safely ejecting the drive.
This is what I need help with.
Halfbaked.

 

[Dave76]

Check your motherboard manual and then the settings in BIOS.

Are you using IDE or SATA, this will affect the eSATA issue. It will need to be in AHCI or RAID, to allow hot swap, so you can safely remove the external.
It's also depending on your MOBO functionality.

Same thing happened to me, it was IDE mode, had to switch to AHCI or RAID for it to hot swap.

Is your eSATA port on a separate controller?
Connected directly to the board SATA port?

There is a program called Hot Swap that looks and acts like the MS Safely Remove Hardware function. It will enable you to remove any hardware while the system is still running. Haven't tried it in IDE mode. Let me know if you want to try it.

The USB, I think, should be in legacy setting.
Will try to confirm next time I re-boot.

 

[Halfbaked]

Dave 76,
Thanks for your help.
Reading your post gave me an idea.
I tried an old thumb drive and the eject heading showed up.
Installed then uninstalled Panda Vaccine then again tried the USB backup hard drive and the 'eject' was there. Apparently it doesn't play well with left over remnants of Panda Vaccine.
As for the eSATA, the problem seems to be a loose connector in the header of my Coolermaster Sniper. I'll try to fix that tomorrow and will post results.
Thanks again.
H

I just tried the Hot Swap you mentioned but it only supports x32.
Couldn't find the right program for x64.
H

 

[Dave76]

Glad it helped.

Hot Swap works perfectly on my Win7 64bit OS.

Run it and see if it's working.

If you use it everyday you can set it up as a task to start at login.

I just run mine when I need it. Had it set up as a task for a while, but disabled it.