I can't see my hard drive!

Gilly B

Gilly B

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Gillian
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Yikes! my Western Digital 500gb disk drive has disappeared from the drives list on my PC. I have tried unplugging and plugging back in the USB. I have shut down my PC and started it again. It has gone. :shrug:

The drive is behaving as if it is plugged in and ready to use. Can any of you PC buff's point me in the right direction. I did get a balloon message come up saying something about not being able to find something. :bang:
 
What OS are you running Gilly? XP?


Right click on My computer, left click on properties. In the window that comes up you'll see a disk management section in the list on the left. Click that and you should see a list of your hard disks, your external one should be near the bottom. See if it has a drive letter assigned to it, if not, right click on it and left click on change drive letter. Give it a random letter not already being used.

That balloon message could be the key however and it'd be handy to know what it says ;)
 
Hiya Gilly.

Try plugging the drive directly into the computer - not into an hubs, etc. Also, if you have a mains supply for the hard disk, use it.

Failing that - go through control panel - system - hardware - device manager. If you see anything with a yellow exclamation mark that could be the hard drive, delete it and then plug it back in - that may well fix it.

Hope this helps.

Anth.
 
Matt my OS is XP.

I have taken a screen shot of the page, but it won't let me post it in here or my gallery.

Under the list other USB Devices, there is a large yellow question mark and underneath that is (sub folder position) another yellow question mark and a yellow exclamation mark over it. Is this what you suggest I uninstall?

I won't do anything until you guys say so. thanks
 
Mine does that sometimes Gilly
i unplug power and firewire cable and when I replug it all works again.

Like Matt says... you could reboot just to make sure first.
 
:eek: ... My Lacie did that a couple weeks back Jilly ... :cautious:

And I tried all sorts of things to sort it ... :eek: ... and then I called the Lacie helpline in a right panic ... :D


If I remember correctly it went something like ... had to switch everything off especially the Lacie ... remove the USB ... leave it for the statutory minute or so ... plug the Lacie back in and switch it on ... run the poota up and let it settle ... then plug the USB back in and hey presto ... I :love: the techies at Lacie Soooo much now ... :LOL:


I am not a hundred percent about the full sequence but basically if you treat it as a brand new item and start from scratch by the book they said you can't go far wrong ... :shrug: ... assume WD won't be too dissimilar and has to be worth a shot ... :shrug:



HTH ... ;)


:p
 
Matt, the message has just come up again in the balloon, it said something like - "A problem occured whilst installing. the device might not work properly"

Anth, I deleted the Yellow exclamation mark, and plugged it back in and Yellow Ex Mark is back???

Oh why aren't things simple.
 
Cheers Janice, Ven and Matt - I will give it another go.
 
Whooaa! it worked. Thank you, thank you Matt, Anth, Ven and Janice. :notworthy::notworthy: I did what you said and unplugged everything and shut down the PC. Plugged the power and USB back into the Western Digital My Book, then plugged it back into my PC. - Yes Matt a different USB port. PC found it straight away. What the hell made that do that then - Ven, I can see why you panicked - so did I. Phew! Bloody computers.
 
USB can be funny sometimes. You don't need a driver for USB hard drives in XP so it uses in-built software, sometimes it has a little dicky fit every now and again and falls out with a usb device, the ports are completely seperate - if you plug something in to a usb port and then unplug and plug it into another it has to re-install the drivers because the ports are seen as completely seperate entities.

It could be a dodgy port, it could be a dodgy lead, its more than likely just one of those things. If you unplug and replug into the original port it'll probably work as well.
 
Sometimes there is not enough power from the computer to power external devices - Different usb sockets can sometimes fix this if the first one that it was connected to goes haywire!!

Glad it worked anyway, my invoice is in the post ;)

Anth.
 
YAY ... well done and thank gawd for that Gilly ... :clap:



Just a synch type thing external hard drives are a bit prone to from time to time ... :cautious: ... apparently ... :shrug:


At least you are sorted and know how to deal with it next time ... :D




:p
 
magpieant said:
Glad it worked anyway, my invoice is in the post ;)

Anth.
Click to expand...

Do you know Anth, there are times when a person gets desperate (er! I know that is going to be misunderstood by some parties) with PC's and their bad behaviour, that you would pay anything to get it fixed NOW. You send your invoice, my twin sister will pay you :LOL::LOL::naughty:
 
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