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General discussion

External Hard drive won't run as a drive

Aug 21, 2006 10:05AM PDT

I am running Windows XP SP2 and I have just purchased a Beyond Micro 250gb external hard drive. As I purchased it from TigerDirect I have very little documentation to help me out. The problem is that my hard drive is detected and Windows claims it has installed drivers, but the drive only appears as an unusable mass storage device. I cannot find it under computer management at all. Any help would be nice, though if the help is the suggestion not to buy from TigerDirect again, I'm already there.

Discussion is locked

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Quite common with some machines.
Aug 21, 2006 10:23AM PDT

Missing motherboard or other drivers. Not something to pin the blame on anyone but Microsoft for that issue.

Without machine details, this is a wild guess. Try all USB ports and then install latest motherboard drivers and enable all the USB ports in the BIOS.

I won't cover how to partition or format drives.

Bob

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Tried...nothing
Aug 23, 2006 11:51AM PDT

I would describe my tech knowledge as somewhere between somewhat savvy and functionally competent, thank you for bearing with . I updated the BIOS although I'm not totally sure that's what you suggested. Is BIOS the motherboard driver?

I tried all of my USB ports although I have been unable to ENABLE ALL USB PORTS like you suggested because my BIOS doesn't give me the option, unless I just can't see it. The only thing it says concerning USB is that something LEGACY is enabled.

I read on a discussion board that my problem may be due to an underpowered AC adapter on my HDD although I am using the one that came in the box.

Just for reference these are my specs
TOSHIBA SATELLITE (laptop)
M35X-S311
Toshiba EAL20 motherboard
running PhoenixBIOS 1.9

having problems with a BeyondMicro 250gb 3.5" external HDD

thanks

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Link. It's Hi-Speed USB or USB 2.0 (both mean same)
Aug 23, 2006 12:17PM PDT
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Still troubled
Aug 27, 2006 10:57AM PDT

Which do you mean? The external drive is not partitioned or formatted because I am unable to do so. If you mean my laptop you'll have to be a little more specific about what clues I should give you

thanks a lot for your help so far Bob. At the very least I've updated my BIOS which seems to be a good thing.

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About computer management.
Aug 27, 2006 12:01PM PDT
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Disk Management
Aug 28, 2006 3:39AM PDT

Thanks for the link, I'l check it out after I get out of work to see if it offers any solutions, but what I meant was Disk Management (which I found under Computer Management) didn't display my drive. It appears as a disk drive under device manager but not as a drive under disk management.

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If a device shows but not in disk management...
Aug 28, 2006 3:58AM PDT

I begin to suspect missing motherboard or other drivers.

Bob

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Motherboard drivers
Aug 29, 2006 4:03PM PDT

Any recomendations? The Internet's a big place and everyone offers drivers but no one seems to have what I need.

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That would be Toshiba.com
Aug 29, 2006 10:15PM PDT

But somethings amiss. Either the drive is not jumpered correctly (there is no standard here) so check it again against the documentation.

Also it's time to try it on any other machine.

Bob

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Jumpers, other computers
Aug 31, 2006 12:42PM PDT

I tried it on a friends laptop with the exact same results. A bubble pops up and tells me the drive is installed, it appears under device management, but nothing else.

The jumper problem does spring to mind, I've seen it floating about on the hard drive discussion boards, it's the settings on the hard drive itself, or something like that, right? I'm at a loss here because the drive came with nothing more than a quick-install How-to paper, and Beyond Micro hasn't responded to my e-mails. If this involves opening the case I void my warranty, (breaking the plastic sticker) which I would not prefer to do. Ah well, whatever I need to do to get this dang thing working.

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Since it fails on more than one machine, it's likely dead.
Aug 31, 2006 12:47PM PDT

Get the exchange going.