USB Drive doesn't get a drive-letter

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sid Knee
  • Start date Start date
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Sid Knee

I've just got a new usb-drive box and installed a hd into it (yes, I did
check the jumper was set to master).

When I plug it into the usb port, it apparently installs OK and I get
the tray icon for unplug/eject. the hd is also detected and listed
correctly in device manager.

However, it is not assigned a drive letter and doesn't appear in My
Computer or Disk management.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
 
I've just got a new usb-drive box and installed a hd into it (yes, I did
check the jumper was set to master).

When I plug it into the usb port, it apparently installs OK and I get
the tray icon for unplug/eject. the hd is also detected and listed
correctly in device manager.

However, it is not assigned a drive letter and doesn't appear in My
Computer or Disk management.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
Click to expand...

Is it formatted?

How big is the drive?

Is SP4 installed?
 
Sid Knee said:
I've just got a new usb-drive box and installed a hd into it (yes, I did
check the jumper was set to master).

When I plug it into the usb port, it apparently installs OK and I get
the tray icon for unplug/eject. the hd is also detected and listed
correctly in device manager.

However, it is not assigned a drive letter and doesn't appear in My
Computer or Disk management.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
Click to expand...

I recently purchased three of these. Two worked perfectly but
the third displayed the symptoms you describe. After I exchanged
the USB case, it worked as it should.
 
I finally fixed the problem by removing the drive and independently
formatting it.

What they laughingly call the "manual" states (after you've translated
it to real English) that you can format the drive after it is installed.
And indeed, given that it uses a notebook drive, it's not necessarily a
trivial exercise to do otherwise.

In my case, I was lucky to have a basic 2.5" usb drive box that I could
load the drive into and format. (The device I had the problem with is a
combined usb-drive and multimedia player).
 
Sid said:
Formatting isn't *supposed* to matter. I should be able to see the drive
and format it in the usb setup
Click to expand...

Yes it does. If it's not a recognized format, windows will assign a
drive letter, assuming one is free.

If it's an unrecognized format, but the partition exists, it may prompt
a drive letter, but it's unusable.


Use the computer management disk management MMC console. If i were to
guess, diskmgmt.msc

Create a partition, format it (to the FS you want), and then you should
have it accessible via drive letter.
 
Tim said:
Use the computer management disk management MMC console.
Click to expand...

Like I said, the drive itself didn't show in disk management so there
was nothing to partition/format - that was the difficulty.

All fixed now, see my later message.
 
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