USB 2.0 HD problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Mc Kenna
  • Start date Start date
J

Jack Mc Kenna

I purchased a new 120 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive from a reputable
internet store, but when I connect it I see that WinXP finds new hardware
( the drive ) but it does not show in MY Computer, or in Disk Management. It
does show in Control Panel\System\Device Manager\Disks as being enabled with
no problems. It is a formatted drive. How can I get this drive recognized,
or maybe its dead?
 
Jack Mc Kenna said:
I purchased a new 120 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive from a reputable
internet store, but when I connect it I see that WinXP finds new hardware
( the drive ) but it does not show in MY Computer, or in Disk >Management.
It does show in Control Panel\System\Device >Manager\Disks as being enabled
with no problems. It is a formatted >drive. How can I get this drive
recognized, or maybe its dead?
Click to expand...


Jack:
These non-recognition of USB 2.0 devices - particularly flash drives & USB
external HDDs - has been a continuing problem-area with the XP OS.

We continually encounter situations where a USB 2.0 device - generally
involving a flash drive or USB external hard drive - will work perfectly
fine in one machine and not in another. And in far too many cases, we're
unable to determine why this is so since we're unable to detect any
hardware/software problem in the balking machine that would cause this
non-recognition effect.

Anyway, we've put together a more-or-less checklist for troubleshooting
these problems that (hopefully) may be of some value to users like yourself
who may be encountering this type of problem...

1. Access Disk Management and see if the USB device is listed. If so, and
there's no drive letter assigned, see if you can assign a drive letter to
the device.
2. If the USB device is listed in Disk Management with an assigned drive
letter, right-click on its listing and select Explore from the submenu.
Hopefully, Windows Explorer will open and the device will be listed.
3. Connect the USB device *directly* to a USB port on the computer, not via
a USB hub. Try different USB ports should your computer have multiple ports.
4. Avoid using a USB extension cable.
5. Try connecting a USB device (that does not contain an auxiliary power
supply) to a USB port both before and after the boot operation.
6. Try alternate powering on/off methods. If the USB device contains its own
power supply, try booting up with its power on, then try powering on only
*after* the system has booted to a Desktop.
7. Try a different USB cable.
8. In the USB controllers section of Device Manager, uninstall all the USB
controllers listed and reboot.
9. If the device in question is a HDD which you installed in a USB
enclosure, jumper the USB external HDD as Master (or Single if the HDD is a
Western Digital disk). A number of users have reported that jumper
configuration corrected their non-recognition problem. In my own experience
it didn't seem to matter how a USB external HDD was jumpered. But it may be
worth a try.
10. If the device in question is a USB external HDD, first check out the HDD
with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility. If it checks out OK,
and you can remove the HDD from its enclosure (without voiding any
applicable warranty), do so and install the HDD as an internal HDD to
determine if there are problems with the drive.
11. If the USB device is connected to a USB 2.0 PCI card, try changing the
PCI slot to which it's currently connected to another one.
12. Access the website of the manufacturer of the USB device to determine if
there's any firmware update or info re the problem you're experiencing or
there's any possibility that the USB enclosure itself might be defective.
13. Determine from the manufacturer of your motherboard whether there's a
BIOS upgrade affecting USB device recognition.

Let us know if you're able to resolve the problem.
Anna
 
Anna,
FYI - Both my neighbor's and my USB 1.1 hub (same manufacturer & model)
stopped working about June 2006. Both worked great for over a year and
suddenly quit for some odd reason. I have two USB 2.0 hubs of the same
computer and they work fine. Looks like several posts have same issue with
USB 2.0 hubs. I tried your troubleshooting steps with no success. Should
you find an answer, please post. Thanks. Alan
 
I bought a cheap enternal 2.5" enclosure a few months ago. Combo UBB2 and
Firewire. Worked fine with a 6Gb drive from my old notebook which no longer
allows the machine to boot. (Boot sector corruption I think, but the drive is
fine apart from that.

It worked both USB and Firewire in my elderly Sony Vaio desktop (XP Home SP1
or less !) and my nearly 2 year old Dell Inspiron 8600 with XP Pro SP2.

Yesterday I did what I always intended to do and bought a new large disk for
it. Samsung 120Gb. After some messing around I managed to format it on the
Dell but it wouldn't see the drive through Explorer. Some problems on the
Sony but I could get files copied to it. I figured it might be the size of
the partition (full disk) but reducing it made no difference.

After a few further experiments and some updates form the Sony support site
the thing now works fine with Firewire and USB1.1 on the Sony at full disk
size (partition extended using the Dell!). It gets a correct disk letter
allocation.

On the SP2 Dell system the hardware is seen and listed and can be formatted
and partitions adjusted but is not available to windows apps or listed in
explorer, etc.

The device uses the Prolific PL3507 chip set which may have a few problems
according to other boards, and there may be applicable firmware updates (not
fully checked yet) and possibly some XP patches that are required. But
nothing found so far matches the symptoms of my problem. I would not mind so
much but the unit was bought for use with the notebook but only works on the
desktop machine!

Somewhere will be a complete solution to this but only if we can bring the
fragmented parts of the solution together!

Any ideas greatly accepted.


Grant
 
Anna, thanks.

You prompted me to do the one thing I had not done and it worked immediately
for both USB and F/wire.

So I now have a fixed drive letter on the notebook and the desktop allocates
the next available letter when I plug the disk in.

That's good enough for me for now! (though clearly there is still a solution
to be identified somewhere. The SP1 fix on the Sony related to Hibernation
and restart issues as I recall, the hibernation itself was not a problem per
se.)

Thanks again.

Grant

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