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General discussion

External HD not recognized by XP

Mar 3, 2005 7:11AM PST

Can someone help me with this:
I have an external hard drive, which is no longer recognized by Win XP that is plugged into a UBS2.0 port. The HD is formatted and was at one time working, then I tried adding a second internal hard drive and the external drive no longer worked. I thought the problem was a conflict that devices had the same drive letter. I changed the drive letter on the second internal hard drive to no avail. Then removed the second internal hard drive so everything was set back. Still, the external hard drive is not recognized.

The external hard drive is not listed in the device manager. Any thoughts?

Discussion is locked

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The external hard drive is not listed in the device manager
Mar 3, 2005 7:18AM PST

"
The external hard drive is not listed in the device manager. Any thoughts?
"

That's a bad sign. You didn't tell if the drive spins, blinks, tried another cable or the acid test... works or not on another machine.

Bob

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acid test
Mar 4, 2005 1:35AM PST

The device does power up (the light comes on) and is drive does spin. However, does not work on another machine.

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"does not work on another machine."
Mar 4, 2005 5:03AM PST

Here's one far fetched idea to drag the data back. Not very costly. Obtain another USB 2.0 drive case, move the drive over and hope.

Bob

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Check the USB header
Mar 3, 2005 9:18AM PST

If it was working before you added the internal drive, is it possible you jostled a connector on the MB? Some have additional ports available that are wired to the front or rear of the case and connected to pins on the top part of the motherboard. Working inside the box sometimes knocks things loose.

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Connectors are working
Mar 3, 2005 11:13PM PST

Good suggestion, but I think I can rule out a bad connector on the MB, because the external drive is USB. There are 11 USB ports on this machine at different places on the MB and the external hard drive is not reconized by any of them. Other devices do work with the same USB ports. So, still no luck in getting the wonce working drive to be reconized by XP. Any other thoughts at this point would be welcome.