Access Of External Storage Drives

[Maejo Man]

I am running a newish PC running XP Pro SP3 and very rarely have a problem , except for yesterday. I bought a USB adaptor that is supposed to let me plug in external hard drives, of either SATA or IDE and extract the date I have stored, but none of them will open. When I plug one into the USB adaptor all the lights come on the adaptor, and XP tells me I have an external drive plugged in, but on but on looking in "my computer" the drive does not appear. I then looked in "Device manager" to see if there was a problem, it tells me the title of the drive and capacity, and that all drivers are fine and that the device is working!

I have tried both types of drive in the adaptor , but none will open. I even tried a new formatted drive, with the same result. I can plug in a "flash drive" of any capacity and it opens fine direct in the USB , also all my various card readers. I can also use a 500GB laptop style drive in a case , which also opens fine direct in the USB.

Any suggestions would be welcome.....Thanks

[phuket Mike]

Have you looked at in Disk Manager, it might just be a matter of creating an extended partition.

[bdenner]

I bought an external HDD a while ago and after a bit of frustration found it was not formatted. Check it with your Disk Manager in Computer Management, make sure it's formatted and has been allocated a drive letter.

[Maejo Man]

Have you looked at in Disk Manager, it might just be a matter of creating an extended partition.

Didn't think of looking,...thanks.... just looked but nothing shows up except the main drive and CD ROM If there was a drive showing I could do something with it, but nothing sadly. Will keep exploring Many thanks

[Maejo Man]

I bought an external HDD a while ago and after a bit of frustration found it was not formatted. Check it with your Disk Manager in Computer Management, make sure it's formatted and has been allocated a drive letter.

As I mentioned in my OP all these drives are data storage drives, so well formatted. Thanks for the suggestion.

[phuket Mike]

Okay so, the drives you have placed in these external boxes do they already contain data? from another machine? If they are formatted in XP as dynamic data drives and you are trying to access them on a laptop they will not work. In XP or Win 2000 on a desktop or server you could create dynamic partitions, the version of XP on a laptop will not read these drives.

The only other thing I can think of is the jumper settings on the drive are set to master, so conflicting with the existing primary disk (master) so they need to be set to slave or cable select. The jumpers are located on the end of the drive and easily be changed.

[Ginkas]

It might be that Windoze has not allocated a drive letter/s to your drive/partitions.

This would be why it/they do not show up in My Computer.

I'm on Windows 7 at the moment and to allocate drive letters I need to open

- Control Panel;

- Administrative Tools;

- Computer Mangement;

- Disk Management

In there you should see your disks, their partitions and their drive letters

If your 'added' drive does not have a letter, right click and allocate an unused one.

Can't remember if the path to Disk Management is exactly the same in XP, but that is where you want to end up.

(Seem to remember it was easier to find in XP!)

Happened to me once, and I couldn't understand why the d*mned drive was showing up in BIOS and everywhere else, but not in My Computer.

Finally found it had no drive letter!

[TongueThaied]

Frankly, I have never had full satisfaction out of an external USB "adapter" or hub that I purchased in Thailand. Either they stopped working entirely or they would only function with some things. Like a flash drive would work, but an external hard drive would not. the mouse would work, then suiddenoly stop working unless I plugged it directly into the computer's USB port or rebooted. My money says you should blame the hub. I doubt if there is anything at all you could do to the drive or to you computer to make the computer read it through the hub.

If you can plug the drives directrly into the computer and they work, then it is the hub that is the problem, pure and simple. It has been a source of great frustration for me, since my notebook has only three USB ports and I have external drives, printer, mouse, etc.

Good luck!

[Maejo Man]

Okay so, the drives you have placed in these external boxes do they already contain data? from another machine? If they are formatted in XP as dynamic data drives and you are trying to access them on a laptop they will not work. In XP or Win 2000 on a desktop or server you could create dynamic partitions, the version of XP on a laptop will not read these drives.

The only other thing I can think of is the jumper settings on the drive are set to master, so conflicting with the existing primary disk (master) so they need to be set to slave or cable select. The jumpers are located on the end of the drive and easily be changed.

I think you might have found the answer here Mike. All the data drives were created on a Win 2000 Pro PC and that could well be the problem trying to access them on an XP platform. Currently loading an old copy of Win 2000 onto a new HD to see if I can access them from there.

Many thanks to all the others for their suggestions..MM

[phuket Mike]

Are you using a laptop or a desktop, if you are using a laptop and the partitions on the drive are dynamic (an option in 2000 and XP), the laptop version of XP or 2000 won't be able to read them, I know because I had the same problem. There is a solution to this listed on various tech support forums including Microsoft. It involves using Diskprobe to modify the partition table, I would not recommend it, I tried it and although it appeared to give access to the drive, the data was in fact corrupt.

If you have a desktop with XP or 2000 it will be able to read them, you will need to copy everything off them and re-create the partitions as basic or simple whatever the word is, then copy your data back. A right royal pain but in my opinion the only safe method.

[Maejo Man]

Are you using a laptop or a desktop, if you are using a laptop and the partitions on the drive are dynamic (an option in 2000 and XP), the laptop version of XP or 2000 won't be able to read them, I know because I had the same problem. There is a solution to this listed on various tech support forums including Microsoft. It involves using Diskprobe to modify the partition table, I would not recommend it, I tried it and although it appeared to give access to the drive, the data was in fact corrupt.

If you have a desktop with XP or 2000 it will be able to read them, you will need to copy everything off them and re-create the partitions as basic or simple whatever the word is, then copy your data back. A right royal pain but in my opinion the only safe method.

Hi Mike, I do have a laptop but it never gets used with any drives, all I use are PC's . As I mentioned I am installing Win 2000 on a new drive to see if I can access the drives from that. I even bought a new docking station to see if that will help as well. Tomorrow is a busy day Thanks

[phuket Mike]

Are you using a laptop or a desktop, if you are using a laptop and the partitions on the drive are dynamic (an option in 2000 and XP), the laptop version of XP or 2000 won't be able to read them, I know because I had the same problem. There is a solution to this listed on various tech support forums including Microsoft. It involves using Diskprobe to modify the partition table, I would not recommend it, I tried it and although it appeared to give access to the drive, the data was in fact corrupt.

If you have a desktop with XP or 2000 it will be able to read them, you will need to copy everything off them and re-create the partitions as basic or simple whatever the word is, then copy your data back. A right royal pain but in my opinion the only safe method.

Hi Mike, I do have a laptop but it never gets used with any drives, all I use are PC's . As I mentioned I am installing Win 2000 on a new drive to see if I can access the drives from that. I even bought a new docking station to see if that will help as well. Tomorrow is a busy day Thanks

I don't think that will make any difference as XP and 2000 are virtually the same technology. Have you checked the jumpers on the external drives if they are set to master this would certainly cause a conflict.

Having quickly looked around a few tech support forums, it looks like the external drive should be set to master or cable select, I think the jumpers are your problem you may need to play around trying different settings.

[seedy]

I have them same problem. Running Toshiba laptop, external HDD works fine plugged in directly, will not read thru the hub.

[Maejo Man]

Are you using a laptop or a desktop, if you are using a laptop and the partitions on the drive are dynamic (an option in 2000 and XP), the laptop version of XP or 2000 won't be able to read them, I know because I had the same problem. There is a solution to this listed on various tech support forums including Microsoft. It involves using Diskprobe to modify the partition table, I would not recommend it, I tried it and although it appeared to give access to the drive, the data was in fact corrupt.

If you have a desktop with XP or 2000 it will be able to read them, you will need to copy everything off them and re-create the partitions as basic or simple whatever the word is, then copy your data back. A right royal pain but in my opinion the only safe method.

Hi Mike, I do have a laptop but it never gets used with any drives, all I use are PC's . As I mentioned I am installing Win 2000 on a new drive to see if I can access the drives from that. I even bought a new docking station to see if that will help as well. Tomorrow is a busy day Thanks

I don't think that will make any difference as XP and 2000 are virtually the same technology. Have you checked the jumpers on the external drives if they are set to master this would certainly cause a conflict.

Having quickly looked around a few tech support forums, it looks like the external drive should be set to master or cable select, I think the jumpers are your problem you may need to play around trying different settings.

Well the docking station was a WOFT.... I will try various jumper settings later to see if I get any joy. They are currently set to "slave" which was the original setting, but will experiment...Thanks again Mike