# External hard drive not recognized by My Computer



## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

I have an 80 gig external hard drive (simpletech) that is not eing recognized by My Computer. I recently got this new laptop and all my old songs from my other comp. are on this disk, so it is important to keep the files, and not format. My device manager shows an Unknown Device but i cannot figure out what to do. I have also gone through the my computer 'manage' key, and it shows an unlabeled drive, but i am unable to rename or edit the drive. please help.

thanks


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Does the drive work when connected to another computer? That's the first thing to check.


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

i do not have another computer to check on.. it used to work on the one i have but stopped.


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## sliderule (Aug 28, 2001)

Tell us what happens when you connect the external hard drive to your new rig and post any error messages here. I had a similar problem when I connected my external hard drive (and flash drives) to a friend's computer and solved it by adding a *.dll file to her operating system.


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

everything was working fine until one day i connected the hard drive and all that comes up is the 'safely remove hardware' deal in the bottom right corner of the screen, the drive did not show up in the 'my computer'. thats all that happens when i plug it in, besides my computer slowing down.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Can you post a screen shot of exactly what you see in Disk Management?


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

i have figured out that the blank drive in the 'disk management' is not my external hard drive, because the capacity is not correct.
something new i have tried is plug in my 1 gig memory chip and that works fine.. so the problem lies within the hard drive or settings on the computer; i think.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Your screen shot didn't make it.

To post a screen shot of the active window, hold the _*Alt*_ key and press the *PrtScn* key. Open the Windows PAINT application and _*Paste*_ the screen shot. You can then use PAINT to trim to suit, and save it as a JPG format file. To upload it to TSG, open the full reply window and use the _*Manage Attachments*_ button to upload it here.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Funny I can see the screen shot...I see a 1 gig drive and then two partitions of one C and a D recovery partition.
It might be the external chipset that does the conversion...in which case one of these will read the ide drive. Or find someone with a desktop and slave it to theirs.
http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/ord...partno=00508&search=USB&rsite=g.usbide&rcode=


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

If that is the case about the screenshot, it doesn't sound like the drive is recognized or have a drive letter assigned.

If you go into Disk Management, do you see it listed there ever?

Do you still have that friend's computer to try connecting it to that you mentioned in your second post?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I edited the post in question to see what happened, and the screen shot is posted as a BMP. I have no idea why IE6 doesn't show me the BMP, but it doesn't. OTOH, in looking at the screen shot, I'd look in Device Manager and see what it says about the drive.

Bob, the screen shot is Disk Management, and it's not there.


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

Then hopefully they have their friend's computer they used before available or even one they can take to a computer store to test out. Most are willing to help.


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

actually i do see the drive show up for a split second every time i disconnect the drive form the computer. the drive info will flash up on the screen abd then vanish, that probably wont help anything, but heres another screen shot.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

How about a screen shot of any errors in Device Manager?


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

heres the device manager screen shot: 

anything else???


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

No chance of being able to even try and connect the external drive at your friend's computer or even one at a computer store.

This would go a long way towards determining if the problem is with the computer or the case or hard drive.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I have to agree with Bob, I'd find a system to plug this thing into. If that fails, it's probably time to remove the physical drive and test it directly connected to an IDE channel. The indications are that the USB controller is properly recognized, so if it's the external drive, I'd be thinking it's the drive itself...


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

i just tested the hard drive on another compute, and the same problem occurred. I opened 'my computer' after the computer automatically installed the drive, and nothing.. no drive... so there is something wrong with my external hard drive.... what should i do?... important files on hard drive, need to recover.

thanks


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

So it still could be the case the computer is in and the associated electronics.

Can you take the hard drive out of the case and connect it directly to the IDE controller?


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

im not sure what you are talking about


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

The external hard drive is typically a regular hard drive in a case that is in a case that allows you to connect it to a USB port. 

Take the hard drive out of that case and connect it internally into the computer.


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## dastumster (Sep 11, 2006)

You probably already tried this, but run a quick check to see what the computer shows in the explorer view (rightclick start, scroll down to explorer). Next, with explorer still open, remove the usb connection and insert it into a different usb port. Depress f5 key to refresh view.


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

NeedsHelpPlease said:


> i just tested the hard drive on another compute, and the same problem occurred.


So it sounds like the same problem is happening on two different computers? Do other USB devices work on those ports?


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## NeedsHelpPlease (Sep 8, 2006)

i am about to try to take it a part but i thought id answer you first..

my 1 gig memory chip works fine on the usb port and other things like my wireless mouse works on the port...


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

So that goes even further to let you iknow that the IDE ports are working.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

IDE ports? Perhaps the USB ports are now proven to be working.


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

NeedsHelpPlease,

I greatly appoligize for my typo.



Bob Cerelli said:


> Do other UB devices work on those ports?


It is good to know that other USB devices work on the USB ports.

Now you can continue to move to finding the solution by taking the drive out of the case and connecting it to an IDE cable.


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