Vista does not show External Hard Drive connected through USB

[toseef]

I have formatted and partitioned Maxtor 30 GB HD and want to use it as an external extended backup storage device. I have set the Jumper to 'Master' and format type is NTFS. The HD works perfectly with my old PC (Win XP) as an external drive through USB. But when I attach it with my new PC (Vista Home Premium), the HD is shown in 'Device Manager' only and no where in 'My Computer' or in 'Disk Management'. I have tried different USB ports on my new PC but I couldn't be able to get it recognized by Vista yet. I have searched the internet and most of the solutions say about changing of drive letters and reformatting but my problem is that external hard drive does not appear in 'Disk Management' section at all in any form. Any help in this regard will be much appreciated.

 

[linney]

Is it a self powered drive or is it powered by USB?

Resetting the Bios to Safe Defaults, saving and exiting, then going back in to the Bios and making sure anything to to with USB is enabled, is something else to try.

A tool like this might show what is going on with past USB devices attached to the machine.

USBDeview

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Are there a lot of Mapped drives attached to this machine?

 

[toseef]

Thanks for the reply. It is self powered drive. I have USB Device View results in jpeg format but I don't know how to attach them with my reply because in attachment window typing of url is allowed not uploading, I may be wrong.

 

[toseef]

moreover no mapped drive attached to this machine

 

[toseef]

I have tried to attach file but don't know the outcome..

 

[linney]

You are only linking to locations on your machine which are only accessible to you.

If you have a "Live ID" and use Microsoft's SkyDrive you can upload your photo there and paste a URL link to it back in here.



Here are some similar sites.

http://www.uploadit.org/

http://www.photobucket.com/

http://reg.imageshack.us/register.php

I'm not sure what information (from Usbdeview) we can glean from any such report, it is of more use to you to compare perhaps what it reports on XP with what it reports in Vista. Still, I am always happy to look at such outputs.


In Device Manager is it listed as an entry under Portable Devices? Or is it listed under Disk Drives? Or both? Are there any errors in the Device Manager when you connect it?

 

[toseef]

Thanks, I think I did it in right way...

 

[linney]

What machine is that output from, and is your USB drive mentioned in there?

In Device Manager is it listed as an entry under Portable Devices? Or is it listed under Disk Drives? Or both? Are there any errors in the Device Manager when you connect it?


Are you able to Network between both machines? If so, and you attach the drive to XP and Share it, can Vista access it?

Do you have any other Vista or Windows 7 machines that you can test this drive on?

 

[toseef]

In device manager it is listed under disk drives and not under portable devices. No error in the device manager before and after the connection.

 

[toseef]

The output is from my new machine (Vista). USB I am talking about listed at row #7. I have done the networking between two machine, attached the external drive with old machine and made it sharing enable. Vista did recognize it for some time and then showed the message ' can not have access ....

 

[toseef]

sorry I don't have any other machine with vista or win 7

 

[linney]

I was thinking more along the lines of a relative's or friend's machine for any additional testing.

In XP can you try giving the Everyone Group full control of the drive via right-clicking on the Properties and then accessing the Security Tab of the drive icon. See if the drive then shows up in Vista.

It is possible that your drive may just be faulty.

 

[toseef]

Sorry it did not work. I have two others hard drives 20GB each and both are accessible through XP as external drives but not with Vista.

 

[linney]

Have you got one that you can sacrifice and delete the partitions and everything on it (via XP) and leave it as unallocated partition/drive space (completely blank) and then put that in Vista to see if Vista will recognize and format the drive? Vista may want to initialize the drive first but that is done via an automatic Wizard.

 

[toseef]

I have deleted the partition of one drive and connected to vista through usb but it only appears in device manager and not in disk management or my computer so no further proceeding towards initialization etc is possible

 

[tlcscousin]

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic122125.html

The above link discusses fixes to get a usb drive recognized.