External Hard Drive not found

  • Thread starter Thread starter AJ
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AJ

I'm using a Dell Latitude C840, W2000. I just purchased a
new external hard drive--the shop installed a Maxtor 6 B200
PO (200Gb) hard drive into an external data storage box,
which I've connected to my computer via USB 2. It's
supposed to be plug and play, but once connected and turned
on, the drive doesn't show up in My Computer. When I turn
it off or pull out the cable I get the message that I
improperly removed the Maxtor mass storage device and a USB
connection, so obviously the computer seems to sense the
drive. They also appear in Control Panel hardware listing.
Could this be some sort of master/slave or
primary/secondary HD issue (which I know nothing about!)? I
regularly use USB keys and a 40 Gb mass storage mp3 player
without problem. Any suggestions?
 
AJ said:
I'm using a Dell Latitude C840, W2000. I just purchased a
new external hard drive--the shop installed a Maxtor 6 B200
PO (200Gb) hard drive into an external data storage box,
which I've connected to my computer via USB 2. It's
supposed to be plug and play, but once connected and turned
on, the drive doesn't show up in My Computer. When I turn
it off or pull out the cable I get the message that I
improperly removed the Maxtor mass storage device and a USB
connection, so obviously the computer seems to sense the
drive. They also appear in Control Panel hardware listing.
Could this be some sort of master/slave or
primary/secondary HD issue (which I know nothing about!)? I
regularly use USB keys and a 40 Gb mass storage mp3 player
without problem. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

This is probably an issue for Dell support. I had a similar problem
a few weeks ago, and solved it as advised by the Dell helpdesk:
Uninstall, then re-install the USB device driver.
 
have you had a look in "my computer" in the hard drive
management ? is it visible there ? has the drive been
partition / fdisked / formatted ? initialised ?

win2K does not support (I think) drive greater than 134gig
without some update to LBA48 addressing.

Might also be worth looking at the microsoft KB
 
GeoffW,

There is a Disk 0, which is the internal HDD. Then I see
Disk1, which I assume is the external HDD. Here's what it
says: Disk 1- Unknown (there's a red circle with a white
bar in the middle covering the drive icon). Next line,
'online - 189.92 Gb Unallocated.

If I have to partition and format the drive, can you please
give some advice? I checked the KB and it's Greek to me,
as is your comment about updating the LBA48.
 
"Unallocated" means the drive space has not been partitioned. Disk
Management allows you to create, then format and name (D:, E:, etc) one
or more partitions in the unallocated space.

To do this, in Disk Management:
Highlight Disk1 by clicking on it, then open the "Action" tab up top and
choose Create Partition. The system will take you through the processes,
including choosing partition size(s) and format types (NTFS, etc).
Unless you have good reason not to, use NTFS.

W2k will not report seeing an unallocated space, at least as far as
Windows Explorer is concerned. The disk is there, but until partitioned
and formatted it is useless to W2k. This is normal.

If the system refuses to format the entire unallocated space, then you
need to follow the advice in other posts here about updating W2k so it
can handle very large disks. (The LBA stuff.) If the system DOES see and
format the entire drive, then your W2k is already updated with the
proper service pack.
 
Dan,

Thanks very much for your assistance--I should be able to
take it from here. I happened to upgrade W2K last week (to
SP4), so I'm hoping it will go smoothly.
 
In fact, I may have spoken too soon. When I select the
drive (the right rectangular side with the stripes) under
'All Tasks' 'create partition' can't be selected (it's not
highlighted). When I select the square (left side with D1
labeled), the options are refresh, restore disk
configuration, rescan disks, or all tasks (with option
'write signature').
 
"Write signature" must be done before W2k can do the partition
manipulation; I forgot to make that point (until last night I had to do
it myself on a new drive.)
 
Thanks much to all those who helped. I've got the drive up
and running now. Never could have done it on my own. Why
these things don't come with instructions, I'll never know,
but that's what you get when you're English speaking and
buy your drive at an Asian shop in Paris!
 
You're welcome. That'll teach you to hang out in Paris!

If you're still there, have some moules et frites, et biere Belgique,
for me at the student hangout halfway up rue Soufflot, south side. And a
bit of yakitori at the little place up the block from St Julien le
Pauvre. No sense in just having French food...
 
Dan said:
If the system refuses to format the entire unallocated space, then you
need to follow the advice in other posts here about updating W2k so it
can handle very large disks. (The LBA stuff.) If the system DOES see and
format the entire drive, then your W2k is already updated with the
proper service pack.
Click to expand...

Windows was only reporting a 128gb capacity for 160gb drive - bios was
showing the full amount. Followed your advice and MS knowledge base
article 305098, adding the EnableBigLba value into the registry.

Disk is now showing 148gb ! Better but still not all the way there.
Confusingly, explorer reports capacity to be 148gb, free space to be
148gb, abd used space to be 12gb.

Would be grateful for any further input. Do you feel that it is safe to
start using a disk that isn't correctly formatted to its true capacity.
Will I be storing up problems for the future?

Many thanks for the help,

Peter
 
I can think of 2 factors that could be in play:

(1) Maxtor and others sometimes include a small odd partition on a
retail drive that contains software they think may help the buyer. It
can be deleted. Talk to Maxtor tech support; they're helpful.

(2) there's a semantic problem resulting from different opinions about
what a giga- (or mega- or kilo- or tera- or peta-) byte really is. If
you're advertising a drive's capacity you get a bigger number if you use
1000 bytes as the basic unit; if you're beholden to accuracy, you get a
smaller number by using the correct number, 1024 bytes, as the basic unit.

You could try fooling around with a spreadsheet or calculator to see
whether and to what extent this latter notion may contribute to your
disturbing anomaly. I suspect that's only part of it, though, and Tech
Support would probably be the fastest way to get the right answer.

As far as what Exp-lorer tells you, NTFS tends to claim a good bit of
space as "reserved" for future index-related (Master File Table, etc)
use...but that space is actually not in use - yet. As you populate the
drive with your own stuff, the MFT-reserved space will get used up both
by the growing MFT and if absolutely necessary (and only up to a point)
by your own stuff.

In general, the advertised capacity on the box is more than the actual
capacity of the drive, and the difference is larger in proportion to the
size of the drive.
 
I should also have said that the semantic problem exists also from BIOS
to BIOS, and from element to element in a Win OS. Confusion reigns.
 
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