Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

External hard drive does not recognize C drive (local)

by mulberryrd Sep 15, 2007 10:10AM PDT

First off, I know nothing about external hard drives. My computer is an HP with Me that is on it's way out. A friend loaned me a Maxtor One Touch III Mini with no instructions on how to use it. I plugged it into my computer and it was recognized. However, the external hard drive showed that it would only copy to and from the A drive. This drive is a floppy disk drive that I never use. I think the drive that has all of my information is the C drive (local). How can I get the Maxtor to recognize the drive I want to copy? I would like to copy this info before I lose it all. I am getting a new computer soon but I have been told that Me files can't be transferred directly to Vista.
Appreciate any help but please don't be too technical in answers. Thanks.

Discussion is locked

1 Posts

- Collapse + Expand Details

- Collapse -

"it was recognized"

by Kees Bakker Sep 15, 2007 8:03PM PDT

What does that mean exactly?

If it's recognized the right way, it should appear in My Computer and you can drag and drop any files to it, like you drag and drop files around on your c-drive.
If it isn't recognized, it won't appear in My Computer and you can't use it.

The things I wonder:
- Is the drive partioned and formatted?
- If it is formatted, is it formatted FAT32 or NTFS? Windows ME doesn't recognize NTFS, so it should be repartitioned and reformatted.
- Does this drive need a Windows ME driver?

I think your friend is the best person to answer those questions. He might not like if you repartition the drive and delete all his files doing that.

Hope this helps.

Kees