Desktop Computer Packages

External Hard Drive not showing up in My Computer (Location0)?

I just got a western digital external usb hard drive I am having some trouble getting it to show up on my computer. On my desktop I am running xp with sp2. When I connect it (and yes I have tried different usb's) it says it is installing, new hardware installed, restart computer. Once I restart i can not see my new HDD in my computer. I can see it through device manager but I cannot access it. The status says its working fine but when I go into properties most of the options and information are greyed out and unavaliable. I have searched forums near and far and have found a number of solutions, none which work for me. 1. The hard drive is not defective, when plugged into my laptop running vista it works like a charm 2. Yes it is compatible w/ XP 3. I cannot make changes to the letter which corrisponds with it, when I go into disk manager it appears as "Disk 0 -basic" says nothing about NTFS and doesn't allow me to change a thing. 4. I formated it using my laptop, no dice. Help! I can always see it on my "my computer" on my laptop both before and after I formated it. It showed up as F:/ (and no F:/ is not in use on my desktop) I also used tweakUI to make sure that all the different letters are checked off to work. I don't know if it makes a difference or not but my computer has no problem reading and recognizing usb flash drives. And lastly, as said by amy... how do I convert it to FAT32? (I don't see why it would have a problem reading it as NTFS since both C: and my internal hard drive (D:) are oth in NTFS format and have no problems. Also it did not come with any disks and according to the website its not supposed to, I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling the drivers and still no dice. *******This may be important: I just noticed when I uninstall the driver (i tried to do it again) it says uninstall complete, please restart. Last time after restarting I just plugged it back in, this time I decided to check the device manager driver list again and to my surprise the driver was still on the list. As a matter of fact when the computer finished rebooting, it said "new hardware found" in the little bubble on my task bar even though my hard drive is not even plugged in. I FIXED IT Ok this is going to sound so dumb. I have tried this with two different usb cords (one about 3 ft and one about 4ft and also with a usb extension with 3 ft usb once i got sick of climbing under the desk to unplug it 100 times. The 3ft usb worked fine with my laptop. The HDD came with a 1ft ubs cable (rather uncomfortable) but I decided to give it a shot. I unplugged every other USB from my desktop and plugged it in using the USB it came from... and there it was. No restart, No installing, nothing. Just showed up in about 2 seconds. Can the length of a cord matter? And how come it worked fine on my laptop. Jebbbus.

Public Comments

1. Does it have a power jack? I know my external hard drive won't work in some computers if I don't have it plugged in to a power jack which takes another USB port. I actually had the same problems with my new HD so I'm assuming that's what it is but I may be totally wrong. Hope I helped.
2. Probably the external one is running on NTFS and ur OS can read only FAT32. Convert the file type and re-check it.
3. First, you shouldn't have had to restart your system after connecting the USB drive. Second, I can't be much help, but when you formatted it with your laptop, could you see the drive on your laptop's My Computer afterwards?
4. Hi! first of all it must be recognized in BIOS--please go to BIOS by tapping the DEL key at bootup---then in the BIOS enter the new HDD after the existing HDD and DVD-ROM---cheers!
5. First make sure XP is up to date. Does you external drive need software to work with XP? Make sure! Try changing the drive letter of something else like your DVD/CD drive to like Z. I have had this problem when the computer im using have alot of stuff like memory card reader cause the drive letters are already assigned to other stuff. Another question, Is your harddrive a USB 2.0? Does your computer have USB 2.0? This might be the reason for your troubles.
6. Check your usb driver in your pc if installed properly. Check your new HDD if it is usb 2.0 and check your pc if it is 2.0 usb also, sometimes usb 1.1 doesn't work well with 2.0 usb. Somehow your xp is not recognizing the HDD, try other pc with xp, if it works with other pc with xp, re-install your xp, the usb driver might be corrupted or my be your usb interface is damaged.
7. Amy answered your question, but to be more precise, it's not your OS cannot read NTSF (b'coz WinXP can read both FAT32 & NTFS), but your system drive (which you installed WinXP) is using FAT32 file system format, that's why you can't see NTFS. If this is not the case, then post it up again. Will try to solve for you. ;)
8. "4. I formated it using my laptop" - FAT32 or NTFS??? It should be FAT32. The external drive works on another PC, but not on your XP PC. So, the obvious conclusion is: XP must be the problem, it may be corrupted, missing drivers or infected with malware OR all of these. Call the external drive manufacturer, First. Here's what they will probably tell you: Try doing a Windows Repair, after you have removed all malware. If still not working, do a Windows "Clean Install / Recovery" and that will fix everything. GUARANTEED!!!