windows xp home computer no longer sees my 1TB usb-2 external hdd .. [RESOLVED]

[vhelp]

Hello all..

How do I teach my winxp home computer to recignize my 1TB USB-2 external hdd ?

Between my installing and removing drivers, etc., and finally closing down the pc for the night, this eveing, when I started it back up, it would not see that drive. It will see all other drives include usb thumbs and memory card, no problem. Its just this one hdd it won't see. And I have a feeling that its something to do with when I was reassign new drive letters, even though everything worked fine after that change. Maybe a full nights rest flushed everything out.

This is my analog capture drive, where I capture all my videos to, thank you.

-vhelp 5314

[deadrats]

@vhelp:

odd, are you sure that somewhere along the lines the 1 tb drive didn't get corrupted? i'm assuming you know that with any usb drive formatted with the ntfs system, it must be "safely" removed via the icon or the filesystem can be corrupted, meaning windows wouldn't see it since there would no longer be a validly formatted partition on said drive.

obviously your usb ports are working fine, both from a hardware and software perspective, since anything else you plug into them is seen by windows, my first guess would be the above.

[edDV]

Reformat NTFS

[vhelp]

i don't know. Yesterday, while I was debugging my haupauge card's issues I was changing the drive letter to my 250GB WD Passport, from a K: to D: and I originally had it (was assign automatically) as D, around the time I had began putting all my bigger external software tool suites like my recent Adobe Premier Element 8, on it. Somewhere, sometime, I lost track of my system making changes on me (I have lots of other ext drives, including thumbs and card readers) that I plug/in/out of every day, never a problem. It was only when I changed the drive letter yesterday. I'm pretty sure its related to it. I had used the xp's \computer management\disk management tool on it--found through xp's wonderful help system. Anyway.
when I change the passport from K: to D: there was one more drive letter, J: mapped as a WD Smartware. That setup is now, D: and G:

Maybe this might make some sense to you, it didn't me. Last night, when i was shutting down xp, I went to go bed, about 5 minutes later, I noticed a bright light in the dark. Yeah, it was the hdd. The computer system failed to shut down for some strange reason. So, tired and tuckered out, I flipped the switch on the back of the unit, the UPS, and I went to bed. It was strange to me because I was not having any system troubles. I was up and running, doing mostly capturing, and when I had had enough, I proceeded in my usual manor, shutting down everything.

hey edDV, sorry, I can't reformat what windows doesn't see. So I can't even do that. And I don't want to. I have tons of captured video on it. I was contenplating on getting another 1TB (same drive) but since this happend, I think I better figure out what happend and fix it first.

-vhelp 5316

[vhelp]

@vhelp:

odd, are you sure that somewhere along the lines the 1 tb drive didn't get corrupted? i'm assuming you know that with any usb drive formatted with the ntfs system, it must be "safely" removed via the icon or the filesystem can be corrupted, meaning windows wouldn't see it since there would no longer be a validly formatted partition on said drive.

obviously your usb ports are working fine, both from a hardware and software perspective, since anything else you plug into them is seen by windows, my first guess would be the above.

just to add a reponse to your comment..

I never unpluged the unit. When I first purchased it, I only plugged it in and was instantly recinized. Also, there is no on/off switch like most my other drive, my 160GB drive has a on/off switch, and on that one, I've on/off it many many times. Never a problem. Anyway. On the 1TB, when I shut down the pc, it shuts the drive off automatically at the same time. Also, there have been many times where I had to shut the pc off from the back, on the UPS. I've never had trouble with the 1TB in this manor. So this one is spooky. Thanks again.

-vhelp 5317

[lowellriggsiam]

If the drive is atached by USB to a hubbed USB port and you also have a printer plugged into the same hub, try disconnecting the printer and rebooting. There are a number of printers that hijack the resources in the USB hubs.

[handyguy]

Unplug any other USB stuff & reboot your computer. Only time that happens to me is if there isn't enough power through my USB port.

[dLee]

I stopped trying to reassign drive letters. Windows seems happier when you let it decide. I've temporarily "lost" internal and external drives. Most eventually came back on their own, but I had to reinstall the OS at least once to get them all back - although it was a long time ago.

I've got two external HDD's - a WD MySomething and a Venus DS3 which shows up as Oxford Semiconductor in Safely Remove Hardware.

Sometimes, if I don't eject / poweroff the external HDD's first, my WinXP (SP2) box will not completely shut down. The video card stops outputting and the screens go to hardware standby, but the computer stays on.

Occasionally, the computer will shut off completely after a long wait. The external drives never shut off - in contrast to my WD media player which does cause the WD external to shut down (mostly) when the player is turned off.

Not exactly your issue, but I hope this might help.

[vhelp]

[SUCCESS, RESOLVED]

(I was snowed in today)

Great news everyone! I got it working again. It was all too simple, get it.. simpledrive--thats the drive's name

1. This time, out of random idea I unpluged both the usb cable and then the power cord from the hdd.
2. Then I reinserted the usb cable, waited several seconds, and then reinserted the power cord.

and, vuala..I got the device bell tone, do-da, and the drive was recignised once again.

These devices (at least this) one seems fully operational, you don't turn it on, you just plug it in and it does the rest. The only thing it doesn't do is cure itself if something upsets it, like a system update and drive letter change, etc. Unplugging the power cable seemed to reset the unit, I guess. Anyway, I'm back in the game

-vhelp 5318