[Jim624]

I ordered a hard drive (Western Digital, 40GB) so I could put it in an external case to use to store my MP3's and what not. I got it in the case, all contected up but when I plug in the USB one little icon pops up on my tool bar down by the time....but then it disapeers.... and it is not showing the hard drive in devices and removable storage. What did I do wrong and what do I need to do to make this work correctly ??

Computer runnin' XP pro.

If you need to email me I'm not sure the eamil on Tech support is the one I'm using....so send it to [email protected]

 

[ashnan]

From external drive case manufacturers recommendations:

Are you using an USB port on your motherboard to connect this external drive, or are you connecting to an external USB hub? It is recommended to connect directly to a USB port on the motherboard if your PC has one. External USB drives don't work well with USB hubs.

Don't shut down the external USB drive when your PC is on. Shut your PC down first and then, after your PC is off, turn off your external USB drive. Power your PC up gain, and after Windows has loaded completely try turning on the external USB drive.

USB Drive access problems can happen if there is a problem with your USB root hub device. Check for any yellow exclamation marks in your list of hardware devices in Device Manager. (Right click My Computer > Properties > Hardware tab > Device Manager). Try updating the driver for your USB root hub if the manufacturer of your external drive provided you with a Driver CD. If you are connecting the drive to USB ports on an add-on PCI card (example Via or Adaptec), try their driver CD.

Also, this can happen if Win XP is not assigning the correct drive letter. You can see this using Disk Management.

 

[JohnWill]

Plug in the drive.
Right click on My Computer, Manage, Disk Management.
Find the USB disk in the graphical display, right click on the left hand side, select Initialize. Right click in the graphical display of the "unallocated" display, you can partition and format it there.