# Solved: LaCie harddrive not showing up on my laptop



## jaygor (Jan 20, 2002)

I have searched through this forum for LaCie hardrive that disappears from their pc even though the harddrive and cables function perfectly and plug and play in other pcs to test them out. I have seen quite few messages but none of them have been solved.

My 250Gb Porche harddrive also is no longer seen by my laptop. It runs on WinXP SP3. The LaCie drive on my laptop is usally designated g: and is not there. I have done all the usual checks and tested the harddrive on two other computers including one running Ubuntu, the plug and play works fine and I can see all my files. But not on my laptop.

Has anyone solved this problem? I would be greatful for any answers. 

Thank you

jaygor


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Does it appear in Disk Management?

Right-click Computer > Manage > Disk Management.

How was it partitioned?


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## jaygor (Jan 20, 2002)

No it does not appear in Disk Management. 
I am not sure about how it was partitioned. I bought it over a year ago I took it out of the box and plugged the USB connector into my laptop, the power cable into the electrical supply socket and simply started using it. As an external harddrive it has worked just fine with no fuss. I regularly clean and defragment it and also have it checked out for viruses, malware etc .. so I am at a loss right now and do not know if I bought another LaCie ext drive if that would work. LaCie manual says that WinXP does not require drivers.

jaygor


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

No, it should not need any additional drivers.

But a piece of advice. Never rely on the partitioning and formatting that the manufacturer has done. It is always best with a new drive to use Disk Management to remove everything from the drive, create a new volume and format it. The formatting they do is incomplete and anything could have happened during shipping. It may save your getting the drive filled with data and then a "Access Denied" or "This Drive Is Unformatted" message.

In addition, if you do partition it, do it on an XP machine if the drive is to be shared with Vista. There have been reports of XP's Disk Manager deleting Vista partitions.

Try "cleaning" the machine of all past USB devices to see if that helps.

USB Device Cleanup


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## jaygor (Jan 20, 2002)

Thank you so much for such a fast response and useful advice Elvandil. 
I am at work right now but I hope to try out your suggestions when I get home to my laptop. 

Thank you again and I will keep the forum posted. 

jaygor


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Good luck. We have some more USB fixes around here if that doesn't help. But I find that cleaning out the old devices regularly on my machine makes things work more smoothly (though theoretically it should not, of course, if all worked as it should).


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## jaygor (Jan 20, 2002)

Success !!!
The USB Device Cleanup program revealed the LaCie Harddrive unconnected. There were five other devicesin the list. I uninstalled the LaCie and couple of other devices that were redundant or unconnected and rebooted the laptop. I connected the LACie harddrive and it was recognised straightaway with no other problems.

Thank you very much Elvandil. Now my next task is to use Disk Management and reformat the LaCie hardrive. 


Thanks again.


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