Maxtor external drive not seen

Sorry did not mention i am running XP Pro SP2. I have spent around 4 hours on web today yet cannot work this out. Is not seen in disk management, yet if i click 'safely remove hardware' it offer a removal, although no drive letter.

Points to possible USB issues. The issue could be use of a front USB port (again, not a detail that was shared), a reload of the OS and motherboard drivers overlooked or the need of an update of the motherboard drivers.

Gritty details are best here. At the very least answer what the forum note asks (those words in red.)

If I were to guess given so few details I'd write.

1. Use the rear USB port.
2. Try installing the motherboard driver package.
3. Try the drive in a new housing.

Bob

... i should also add that i am using a Dell Latitude D810. Pentium M processor 1.86GHz, 1 Gb RAM. Thanks.

Bob, Apologies for not giving full details. I'm having most luck with the side USB ports for some reason rather than the back ones. Not sure what i can do about drivers as limited knowledge on this.

using the rear usbs i do not get any recognision with the exception of this message: This device cannot start. (Code 10)
Attempting to update the device driver does not help.

The drive is a MAxtor 250gb onetouch drive. Has own power supply. It used to work !

All the ports on said laptop (that helps!) should be the same. If they aren't it can point to damaged USB ports. Sadly, out of warranty repair is very expensive so we usually end up installing some USB PC-Card to avoid repair.

Another test is required to see if it's the machine, the USB cable or the drive. You take the drive to another machine and test if it works there. If not then we swap the USB enclosure.

If it works there then it points to the laptop.

Bob

Thanks for the advice Bob. I'll try on another machine.

Looks like a problem with the external drive... it's the same when connected to my friend's computer. I followed the advice on this thread as same problem:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?forumID=70&threadID=103929&start=30

The posy by yyzcity states: In most cases the problem is in MBR (Master Boot Record) created in your drive's MBR sector by OS you had before upgrade or patch with service pack etc. So, basically what we need to do to get our HDD back to life is to write the MBR signature (the Hex Word 0xAA55) to your drive's MBR sector.

It is easy to do.
1. Download this utiility:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

2. UNzip it somewhere on your computer then find and run "testdisk_win.exe"

- - - - - -
When i ran this utility it actually found the drive, but for some reason it thinks it is ridiculously large ( i think it was around 40000 Gb). I'm beginning to think there is no hope on this one. Any ideas anyone?

Here's a few.

1. Zero Assumption Recovery or ZAR.
Find these with google.com and they have a demo mode to show what they'll recover. If it works then you have a simple question of "is it worth it?"

2. GETDATABACK.

Cheers,

Bob

The GetDataBack download recognises the drive, but thinks it is 2Tb, instead of 250Gb. It will take approx 20 hours to complete and finds a lot of I/O errors whilst running. To be honest, i can get by with losing the data. I was hoping to get the drive up-and-running to use it again. Perhaps time for a new ext drive...?

Look at wiping the drive and starting over. The drive's maker should tell how.

Bob

Maxtor's product is Powermax. It requires me to have a floppy drive. I've found another produce called wipedrive. It also requires me to use a floppy. Does anyone use a floppy these days? I don't unfortunately. Searching now for alternative programmes...