Find Your Missing USB Drive on Windows XP
Have you ever plugged in a USB drive or any external device with a hard drive and wondered why you cannot see it in My Computer?
More than likely the cause is that Windows renamed the drive to a letter that is already in use. This will happen if you have several card readers, thumb drives or external hard drives attached. It will also happen if you are on a network and have mapped drives.
To find the drive and then rename it, you'll want to right-click on My Computer and select Manage.
From the Computer Management screen, select Disk Management.
In this window you should see all of your connected physical drives, their format, if they are healthy, and the drive letter.
In this instance I am going to change the drive letter of my Lexar USB drive. Right-click on the drive in the list, and from the resulting menu select "Change Drive Letters and Paths…"
Click on Change so we can change the drive letter. You might notice that you can select Add, which would let you mount the drive into a folder if you wanted to. We don't want to, so just click Change.
Select a new drive letter from the drop down list, preferably the one that you usually use for this drive.
Click Yes on the confirmation screen and you are done
If you have auto play enabled, you will get the normal pop up dialog asking what you want to do.
I am a tech for a local high school. we just got some new computers that had a muticard reader in them. sweet eh? well heres the problem. all the students get a networked drive, the networked drive takes H: , but before that gets set.. the muticard reader takes H: so i had to manualy change 40 computers muticard readers drive letter to the zxy..
And this is what i did. Glade someone posted this for other people. its a good thing to know.
While this is a good article, it does not live up to its title. A better fitting title could rather be something like "How to change drive letter of USB Drive in Windows XP".
As explained in the article, the drive letter is NOT missing; it's just assigned another drive and IS visible.
The current title should rather explain what to do when the usb drive is connected, appears in the Safely Remove Hardware list, but no drive letter is assigned to it.
On the plus side, it is a well written step by step guide to what it explains…and…it's got a date stamp at the end…pheew!…finally a site that doesn't keep us wondering if we a reading an up-to-date article…thumbs up!!
Raj,
Thanks for the comment. As the editor of this site, I was considering changing the title on this one…. I think your title might have been a better one. =)
A good article.
However… I have an external USB drive that connects and is visible on a win2k machine. The first time I attached it to a winxp machine, the drive was visible. Now when re-attached to winxp, the drive is not visible to windows explorer.
When I look in disk management I can see the drive but it does not have a letter assigned to it: just the volume name appears and I cannot 'change drive letter or paths' since this is not selectable for this drive.
Any thoughts?
@Paul Rafferty:
I had a similar sort of issue. There were 2 USB 2.0 hard drives attached to my HP dv6000 laptop (running XP MCE) and a USB 2.0 hub. When I plugged in a USB memory stick into the hub, it invalidated the drive letter for one of the hard drives and WinXP REFUSES to see that drive. I've rebooted, I've deleted all the USB entries in the system tree, yada yada, to NO AVAIL.
Interestingly, when I ran an Ubuntu Live CD on a laptop and plugged in that drive, it ran with NO PROBLEMS.
Solution: get rid of Windows! I am switching over to Ubuntu 7.04 with VirtualBox to host my old copy of Windows 2000 to run the few pieces of software I cannot easily replace with FOSS. (primarily Photoshop CS2 and some frame-accurate MPEG editing software)
I end up with the best of both worlds: Ubuntu which seems to Just Work and Win 2000 which XP minus the broken crap and eye candy. I've switched over my old T40 laptop and I like it so much that I am planning to upgrade the hardware on my desktop box (HP a1030n) with more memory, better video card and a nice LCD panel and get rid of Windows on that box as well!
Frankly, Windows is no longer worth the pain of its retarded USB manglement. Vista was off the table from the get-go for me so this is just moving up the time table a bit since XP was my last windows OS ever anyway…
Get Ubuntu. It just works.
WHen I bring up the screen you have above I do not see any drives or drive letters. Layout, partition file system, etc is not there.
Man…the whole "get rid of windows" rhetoric is so old and junior-high, Dennis. The reality is we don't have that option, and most business can't risk NOT using what the rest of the world does.
Besides, if youwant to get into it…from a business perspective Windows TOC is simply much better than Ubuntu's, or believe me business would switch like there was no tomorrow. Look at what businesses will do to save 1/2% of their operating costs…they'll jump through hoops.
So the bean counters have determined the RISK of switching is too great (big costs, retraining users, disruption to business, etc)
you're using the same lame rhetoric a certain brand of tree-huggers have used for a long time - that since YOU are willing to cross the hurdles of a different approach, EVERYONE should be willing to.
Sorry, that's not how the world works. Keep on operating with you rhead in the sand-I'll see you in a few years when I still have job opportunites because I'm wiling to support ANY type of OS.
I'm trying to connect a Connection N&C external drive (RJ45 and USB) to win 2000. While I connect it with RJ45, when I try to set it up by USB, windows cannot recognize it….
I tried rebooting, reformatting, etc without any result…..
Under manager setup the drive does not appear….
Any help??
I have a problem with my Maxtor 6 external drive in that it "lost" it's drive letter designation. It appears in my hardware listing (and I've uninstalled and reinstalled). The Plug and Play installation seemed to work but it does not appear on my list of drives. I don't know if the drive itself went bad or it is a Windows XP issue. I have since reinstalled Windows XP (was having a whole host of problems) and the missing External Drive problem persists.
Wow. You just helped me solve a department head's problem! Muchas Gracias!
Thanks man - you just saved my demo (uses a VM on an external drive) which was due in 1 hour…
I've manually assigned a drive letter to the USB drive. I can't see it in Windows Explorer (double-click on My Computer) but I can access it through a command prompt and through Internet Explorer. In Internet Explorer I type 'My Computer' in the address bar and it shows the drives, including the USB drive (M:). I have a work around for my situation but not a fix. Anyone have a fix for this?
This title is perfect. I searched for "external usb drive will not mount in windows-xp" to get here. Although I am a highly experienced computer user, the concept of changing the drive letter did not occur to me. The external drive worked fine on two other machines, it just would not mount on my notebook where it is used as a backup device. Like so many other computer problems, I can look back and say, "Well, that was dumb!"
What is still not clear is how the drive letter was "removed" from the drive. How did the drive go from having a letter to having no letter. I don't leave it on or connected most of the time. Whenever I plug it in and turn it on, it mounts. This time, it would not mount. All of a sudden, no drive letter. The answer says that "Windows renamed the drive to a letter that is already in use." I had not considered that Windows was as dumb as that.
THANKS! HOW-TO GEEK
THANK YOU!!! That was EXACTLY what I needed to know!
On the subject of the USB external hard drive that Windows did not recognize in Explorer and that the Computer Management, Disk Management would not allow you to assign a drive letter, I have a possible fix.
Following the instructions above, right click on the drive in the lower half of the screen, rather than the name of the drive at the top half of the screen (my USB drive did not appear in the upper half). Next select Partition. The wizard will then walk you through partitioning the drive and will allow you to add a drive letter. When complete, your drive will show up like any other hard drive.
One consideration is that the above process may remove any data on the drive. For me it didn't matter because the drive was new and blank anyway.
Sir:
Saying "thank you" isn't enough to thank you. I'm bery much obliged getting yr help from http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....ndows-xp/.
I was going to format and re-install e/thing from the scratch. Yr trick simply save me time, at least 3/4days. This article is very easy to follow and detailed. Long live yr website. Long live the creators of this site.
Sabir
Found your information on the first search. Well written, easy to understand, and now it makes sense why this would happen in an environment where drive letters change from time to time. THANKS for the help in solving the missing USB drive letter!
Connecting to Disk Manager service…
(This program is not responding)
Well, now I'm screwed.
Nice, that was exactly what I needed. I was going insane with this problem.
ok how do i do that in windows ME
I've read through all of these comments, and am still without a solution. I installed a Seagate 250GB external hard drive. At purchase it was partitioned as one large 232GB partion, which WinXP Pro would not recognize. I repartitioned it to an E: drive of 122GB and an F: drive of 110GB. In Disk Management both of the drives appear, both in the upper and lower parts of the window. E: says Healthy (Active) and F: says Healthy. They are, of course, formatted NTFS.
The problem is that I cannot find these drives via any method other than Disk Management. In Explore, I only show C: and D: (DVD). Have I done something wrong here? What more must I do to make my system recognize those drives?
I should also have mentioned that this external drive is via a USB port, and is direct, not through a hub.
This is weird. Suddenly, with no action on my part, both of the newly partitioned drives appear in Explore, and I am able to backup files to them. I thank anyone (in advance) who might have considered an answer to my problem. It is now resolved.
I took a drive from a defunct Mac laptop and put it in a USB2 box bought off eBay with some drivers; XP found the drive and installed Microsoft drivers as a "Generic USB Disk USB device". However it doesn't appear in Explorer nor does the disk management technique show it either. I'm assuming that it's a functioning drive as it was installed, but am I wrong? Ultimately what I want to do is build a system on this and use it to boot from, but right now all I want is to "see" the drive and format it. Any help would be appreciated as have all the above suggestions/advice have helped. Thanks.
I tried several times but it's not working…. can't make it visible in my computer…someone help me with a working idea!!!!!!!
Your comments resolved a major frustration.
Thanks
Thanks much for this. Microsoft support site did not have any relevant information. I googled it and it led me right to you.
The title is perfect for this by the way. I would not change it. I knew it had installed it I just could not find it. It never dawned on me to go to disk management. Just a reminder that sometimes you need to start with the basics to find the solution.
Nice One! This was a great help with my 2.5″ portable partitioned HDD that was never recognised on my work computer
Does anyone know if there is a way to do this in registry as I don't have access to disk management at work. But I can use regedit through a little program I have
Thank you for this tip. You just saved my presentation tomorrow at a meeting.!!
I get angry with some folks who manage networks today.
When i did my Novell Network managers Course we were told and had it drummed into us to start at the bottom end of the alphabet (eg Z,X,Y etal) for network drives thus leaving the top end of the alphabet for user attached devices what ever they maybe. All this was back in the 90's.
If this was a best practice for network managers then this sort of help would not be required by alot of users as whenever they plug in usb mass storage devices they'd "just work" (by grabbing the next letter after the one used last letter used is E add another USB device it grabs F) for the user.
I've moved away from MS to Linux (I've also moved out of IT as a job) and so i'm not so up todate with MS OS'es as i would otherwise be. I appreciate this howto page as i had done it once before with a card reader but forgot how i did it this page has reminded me. Plus if the IT manager had a clue they'd have network drives mapped to the bottom end to help stop this sort of thing from happening for their users within the corporate.
regards.
On this subject…
I administer a network environment where different users use each machine, but apparently the settings do not stay on the machine, each jump drive attaches differently, so I would have to log in to each machine as each user with thier device to make it work..and thats nearly impossible.
the answer I have given is to plug in the device before they login, it will grab a mapped drive letter and put the data there, but they have to hunt for it since it dosent show it as a jump drive.
Does anyone know of a piece of software or a registry edit to cure this?
I tried this workaround to get my USB stick to be visible in Explorer. I can navigate to it from the command prompt with no problem. If I type 'My Computer' into IE, I can get to the device with no problem. It appears that the issue lies within Explorer itself.
I need help! My external HD icon appears in the tray that it is connected, but does not show up in disk mngt or my computer or anywhere. I have tried assigning my cd drives different drive letters so the computer will pick up the 1st available, but no luck. I have a WD 500g external HD with power cord and usb cord. Tried different cords and usb slots.
The title is definitely misleading. A search led me here to resolve my problem, which apparently several people share:
I also have an old internal drive (with data I would like to access) that I have moved to an external housing, and connected to the USB port. Device manager, the USB Plug & Play, etc. identify the drive, and say it is working properly. But Windows will NOT assign a drive letter. This makes the data contained on it inaccessible.
Disk Manager says it is "Online" and "Unallocated". This happens both on the W2000 Server machine it used to be installed in, and in an XP machine. Using Disk Manager the only option available to assign a drive letter seems to be to partition the drive, but I would assume that this would destroy the data. There MUST be a way to assign a drive letter…but how?
I agree with Douglass. I've tried everything from Device Manager to reboot /reinstall and nothing works unless I restart the computer then the computer only reads the external hard drive for 20 mins or so.
Once you're in drive manager (I've re-installed computers where it couldn't run for some reason that the service was disabled)
and your drive shows up in the bottom (I came here be cause none of my cd/dvd-rom/rw s worked or showed up in the bottom.)
Once those two are met it is easy to change drive letter or mount point as discussed above.
It is also possible to add a drive letter or mount point when windows hasn't done so for you.
For example:
1: right-click the partition you want below.
2: choose-change drive letter and paths
3: now instead of choosing the drive letter in the list and saying change,
click add
4: choose the drive letter (or browse the mount path)
5: ok
6: confirm
If any one knows why my optical drives (both internals and one external usb) aren't showing up in either the top or the bottom of device manager I'd be interested.
Michael- Thanks for the tip. I finally have the drive on my desktop and anytime it is used, the folder changes from a regular folder icon to a drive icon. I went through the mess of trying to open the System Volume Information folder and no such luck. I did all the obvious stuff, googled the problem, went a couple of different routes and still never got in it. Even went into safe mode and no dice. Thanks again! J
Just checking back in. I think I solved my problem.
It seems as if it was a case of assigning alternate drive letters to my removable storage devices.
I'm not sure why since the two removable drives I'm using were getting "E:" and "F:" letters usually far enough down to not cause a problem.
I restarted my computer only plugged in one of the drives used the disk management–>right click and used change drive letters to something much further down "N:". Did the same thing with the other external drive and they both seem to be holding steady for the past day.
I spoke too soon. I awoke this morning to find both o my external drives unaccessible, after disconnecting and reconnecting both, the drive letters again are not being assigned. When I go to disk management the volumes aren't there either.
Thanks for the well-written tip! 'Saved me a bunch of headaches recovering some old mp3s. This site rocks (for geeks, anyway)!
~Lance
Superb fix!
Good fix - and do not change the title, it came top of my google!
I was almost there - in Computer Management under Removable Storage, but the properties for the "missing" USB Drive just lists the drive letter as "Unknown". If it had listed it as the conflicting drive letter I would have realised the problem.
In my case the persistance of the drive letter allocation was unexpected e.g. plug in two usb drives when only one drive letter is available, one stick gets "lost" = allocated the drive letter of the first network drive and is therfore not visible. But suprisingly after removal and re-insertion of just that drive it does not get the free drive letter, XP persists with the previously allocated letter so it remians lost for ever!
I am trying to connect my Ipod cord to a port and while it once worked it no longer does??
I did get error messages about it not being a 2.0 port but it is and also something about a j drive
other plug and play things work in the same ports
Thanks for flagging up a common -but often misunderstood-problem in networked environments…as you say, XP hides the USB flash drive letter when the drive is inserted on an already-booted network - if the flash drive is inserted BEFORE booting on to the network it will invariably be recognised…but this is impractical usually.
There is a neat and useful program - USBDLM - here at http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html which cures this problem and runs as an OS "Service" to avoid problems of no-Administrator rights etc. It also runs automatically each time the system is booted up without the need for tedious repetitive configuration of individual drives. The program's ".ini" file can be modified to particular requirements if needed. Note that the Service needs to be started for the first time by clicking on the Start command icon within the unzipped folder which itself is just copied into the C:\Program Files directory.
The missing drive letter title was perfect for me. I saw and heard XP discover the Lexar Jump Drive, but couldn't see it in Explorer. The Tutorial worked perfectly for me and was a real time saver.
BTW, this is what I Googled and this site came up #7.
"USB Jump Drive not showing up in Explorer"
Thanks very much for taking the time to do this!!!
I have the same deal … my C and my external show in disk manager but the ext has no letter. In the bottom of the screen BOTH drives are shown as drive 0. It's like the some how got combined. They both show even after removing it and restarting….
I'm still having the same conflict.
I've figured out by trial and error it specifically has to be a conflict between my iPod 30 Gig video and a Seagate removal hard drive. They both work fine on their own when plugged into USB ports.
I've tried the drive letter trick many times, without any success. I now believe there may be some problem with how my processor handles the USB connections. I was plugging the external drive to the USB port in the rear of the computer, iPod to the front. Now I've tried plugging it into the USB port in the rear of the machine BELOW where the external hard drive is plugged in.
It seems to be working.
THANKS! you are great!!
Easy to find my USB with your directions
Bob
Thanks!
thanks guys. i really solved the problem, that is, using internet explorer…
Perfect quick solution to an annoying problem. THANKS!
Windows XP SP2
Trying to add external drive - USB
Drive shows up in Computer Management as Disk 3 - says the drive is online and health - active.
Problem is the option to change drive letter is greyed out.
Any ideas?
some added info:
It is a drive from an old computer FAT32 - I used them same external case and same drive on another WIndows XP SP2 computer to backup some of the files but now I have a new computer and want to do the same thing but now this problem.
Losing the data is not an option.
Brilliant. Since I'm using several hard drives in several caddies and swapping them over, they… well, anyway, I decided not to assign it a letter when I formatted it. That was the problem! EXCELLENT. I've read some of the mails critiquing the title of the article, and as one is not averse to critiquing mismatches between label and content, I should be more sympathetic to your critiques. But for me, it did what it said on the tin. EXCELLENT. This was my first trip, but I shall be back for more solutions!
Thanks John! We certainly aim to please!
Well if you aim to please…. I can not format this drive, no reason to format, can't loose the data, it should work just fine but doesn't.
Robert, I would recommend taking this issue to our Forum. We have a lot of great knowledgeable readers there! This way we can get more in depth into the exact issues related to your problem and serve you better!
I bought a new plug and play flash drive that those not come with a disk.
I'm using it already until it started reporting that i should insert a disk before i.e if I try to open it
Please i need a solution to this problem.
Saved my life! Now I see my OCZ Roadster 1GB again!
Regards
Sverrir
hey there,, having same problem with drive E missing in windows XP. there one day, gone the next,, no one and I mean no one so far can tell me what has happened to it, other than its gone dude. had someone send me a disc to repair it,, how am I to repair it when it is the drive that runs the disc etc. all my documents etc on disc are thru drive E.. am sitting here with a double drive computer and the one I truly need is down,, suggestions ? thanks a bunch..
Sarge,,, Semper Fi
Thank you very much! This solved my problem.
I have had the "tone but no drive show up problem" for a long time. Some solutions are simple but until smart people like you show us, well thank you.
Great job thanks always wondered why it did that on Windows XP my old Windows does not have a problem but XP does.
Strange one for me could not figure out where that drive was hidden.
This windows xp is driving me crazy! I have a pavillion hp with no recovery disc and Hp will not give me one. You know they loaded the pavillion 9905 with a secret partition so it will recover it self. Well I am missing files; ststem32\kernel32.dll, system32\wsock32.dll, system32\user32.dll, system32\ntoskrnl.exe, system32\drives\etc\hosts can anyone help me please!
Even if I had the files I don't know where to put them when I do get them can you help? Thanks
thanks allot, it helped e fix my problem in 2 seconds - very easy to follow instructions
A good article, Thanks a lot .This article really helped me to slove my problem very quickly with step-by-step pictures. Once agin thanks to the author. –suresh
Thank you so much!! God bless you for posting this article!!
Thank you for the great tips, and the time you toook to create this.
One note that may also help: If you (readers of this post) have installed a brand new or unformatted disk in a USB enclosure, you will need to intitalize the drive first. You will know that you need to do this because instead of showing as "Healthy" (as in the screen shots above) the dirve will show "Unitialized/Unallocated."
You can remedy this following the steps shown above, except that you'll first click the **LEFT** side of the disk manager display instead of the right side. In the above illustration, you would see "Disk 1 Unitialized" on the left (underneath Disk 0, which is your primary HDD) and "Unallocated" with diagonal hash marks on the right. Click the **left** side, then choose "Initialize Disk" on the **main menu** and follow the steps.
BE SURE YOU ARE SELECTING THE CORRECT DISK DURING THIS PROCESS– A WRONG CHOICE HERE AND YOU CAN TRASH YOUR PRIMARY DRIVE.
Once you've initialized, click the **right side** area of your new drive (again, in Drive Manager/ Disk Management) and choose "Create Partition." Follow the steps–it will automatically assign the next available drive letter–and then choose NTFS/ Quick Format (unless you really want to format the entire drive…which takes a while.)
You're set to go, and the dirve will be recognized in the future. If not, you now know what to do.
I admit, I didn't read all the above posts, but it should be known that this fix also will mount a USB drive when if safe mode. This can be helpful when troubleshooting a computer with viruses and/or spyware/malware. The only difference for this is when you mount the drive, you have to select a totally different letter than what it shows it as in Disk Management. Hope this is helpful!
Good call Jeremy!
Nice fix. But do you have anything a little more long term solution. In most corporations users don't have permission to follow the instructions. Some users are in positions that require them to use usb drives from several different people. Network Admins are constantly asked to "change a drive letter". Will microsoft ever fix this problem?
m-
There are a hundred answers to your question…
) My favorite is this one: Corporations that *require* users to use multiple USB drives can elect to provide the permission to *those specific users* to follow these instructions. I've been in more than one corp environment where I had a day-to-day login on my laptop (that would have prevented me from accessing disk manager) and another that gave me local admin rights so that I could do stuff like this *when I needed to*. Of course, I had to be certifed as an admin first. If corp policy does not extend this permission case-by-case (or by user group) then in effect the policy is "bring your USB drive to a network admin so that he/she can look at it before it gets hooked to the corporate network."
d
@ Dave … "then in effect the policy is "bring your USB drive to a network admin so that he/she can look at it before it gets hooked to the corporate network." …
You are correct! This is the best policy in my opinion. Who knows what kind of crap could be on an end users flash drive? It certainly creates a headache for IT to have to go over each one on an individual basis (depending on company size) … however … if a rogue virus or malware attack is unleashed on the network … I will take a couple minute inconvenience any day!
@ Dave and mysticgeek,
I respectfully disagree with both of you. I don't believe any user should have to open up disk managment to change the drive letter of a USB device just because the OS is incapable of checking to see if a drive letter is in use. It should not matter weather or not the drive letter is being used by a local device or mapped drive. "In use" should mean "In use".
Thanks mate. You helped me out.
cheers.
My problem is that with a Networked drive already assigned to letter F (which for reasons I won't go into here, can NOT be re-lettered), the fix you describe is a multiple-step workaround which must be repeated every time the Flash drive is re-inserted.
Isn't there any way to make Windows PERMANENTLY assign a drive letter to the USB Flash drive port for non-technical people who need to be able to just plug in their flash drives without going through half a dozen steps to find the drive?
Hey,
Wondering if you could help, if I change my external HD from Not Initialized to Online will I loose
all the current data on it??
Thanks
Marty,
I wouldn't think so. What kind of Drive is it? Also what OS are you running?
Brilliant - XP would not recognise my second USB device.
In Disk Management, I created a new partition which allowed me to assign a different letter to this drive.
However, it was a blank HD which was reformatted as part of the process. I'm not sure if you can avoid reformatting or not.
thanks a lot it helped me to finish off my work and go home early.
cheers
Jothi
@ Sonny Breaks … you shouldn't have to reformat the HD.
@ Jothi Thanks for your comment! I am glad you were able to go home early!
Guess you never got around to changing that title, eh?
If you can access your USB drive under DOS but does not show up in Windows Explorer even if you can assign a letter drive in Disk management, check for the following file in windows/system32 directory: newdev.dll
Get it from another XP computer and that should solve any device mounting problem.
Also use the event logger under control panel– administrate tools - to find out what does wrong with the device mounting.
Hope that helps!
Your article solved my frustrating problem on my work computer. The IT department set the E Drive to some network drive and hence my computer though recognizes the external hard drive/USB sticks and installs the driver, never used to let me browse the files inside them.
After reading the article, you solved the problem. Now I can use all my external hard drives, USB jump drives and card readers from my computer.
Just want to leave a thank you note.
Thanks!!!
I have a related problem. I formatted my C drive (Windows XP Home SP2) and now I can't see my second hard disk on the Windows Explorer. I can see it in Disk Management as Disc 1 Local Disc Correct (Active), but with no letter assigned. I right-click it and the Change Letter is shaded and can't be accessed. Formatting not an option. Help!
Windows sux. You'd think they would have fixed this by now.
Hey,
i just wanted to add a comment to this long entry of replies. I had the same issue and could not fix it for anything. Finally I uninstalled every single usb controller and anything related to usb in device manager. then i did a rescan and everything installed back including the drive and this time it assigned a drive letter.
jsut thought id share that with everyone.
Windows handles drive letters through the Mount Manager. See MSDN http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-.....02377.aspx for an explanation. Thus missing drive letters for external drives (I've seen this happen with both 1394 firewire and USB drives) are likely attributable to a bug (feature!!!) of this system driver (c:\windows\system32\drivers\mountmgr.sys).
THANK YOU!
This has been bugging me for weeks, and I knew it had to be something simple.
I hav a external western digital 250gb drive which is set plug and play, turned on windows xp / my computer NO drive, But in divice manager / disk drives it appears….Now seeing her what you said under computer managment / disk managment o the right upper window nothing their about the external drive But below in the gray area it is listed their as disk 2 ???? hummmmmmm…
i did formate the drive using a file from western digital and was again working EVEN tho i lost 150gb of info. was using the external drive again for a week or so having maybe another 30gb back on it and now it won't come up in my computers, but as said above i do see in the areas explained above ;-( HELP…thanks so much appericating any n all to solve the problem hopefully not playing the formate game again and getting the same results….
This didn't work for me, but I found another possible solution. I went to "Device Manager" and uninstalled the drive (from Disk drives) and the USB Mass Storage Device (from Universal Serial Bus controllers) then restarted my computer. It detected and reinstalled my USB drive and it works fine now.
Hey thanks Martin BUt NO go , i followed your advice and did a fresh restart, turned on external, said new hardware was found and the device, so it s their BUT doesn't load the files or does it show up in control panel as a lettered drive ;-(….
Thanks - it was exactly what I was looking for - the title is just fine too!
The procedure to recover a missing USB drive is straightforward but not obvious: In Device Manager, select View / Show Hidden Devices. Under "Storage Volumes" there will be an "Unknown Device" - this is the missing USB drive. Right-click on it and select "Update Driver". After a few momements it should then correctly identify the unidentified USB storage volume as "Generic volume" and the USB drive will be assigned the next available drive letter in Disk Management. I've seen this problem with 1394 Firewire drives and also with SATA disk drive arrays. Good luck!
This is fine and dandy for those who have the driver either on the software or know where to point it in the right direction, be nice if the application searched the internet but it doesn't, personally i bought the western digital 250gb external drive from someone who put it in a case and set as plug n play,ive been on western digital site with no luck except i was told that the drive was actually a internal BUT he made it a external, i found this on it http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bi.....RDI1MDBKQg**&p_li=&p_topview=1
I went here also….http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=7&p_created=1003423281&p_sid=krao8K2j&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=931&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MzA5LDMwOSZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9MTg1JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9MS4xODUmcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1, i seen something as of mention to 1st 2nd generation which i would havn't a clue ;-( i did scroll down to
2nd Generation Serial ATA WD Caviar SE - 7200 RPM: and downloaded Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 for Windows and applied it , it formated the drive having to lose 150gb of info. but worked fine up until i put about 25gb back on it then it happen again disappeared ;-( it is seen in the device manager / disk drives appearing when i turn the drive on…But still it doesn't show up in my computer under hard disk drives as it did ;-( if i had another computer id hook it to their and see what happens but don't at this time , i also did as martin recommended above, and after deleting both, and fresh started it and then plugged in the drive, it said it founded new software and was ready to use But nothing in my computer ;-( so maybe its not being assigned a drive ?? for whatever reason ???..Thanks 2 all responding, hav a gr8 weekend
Thanks… This worked in my case and I caused the problem when I assigned a drive letter to my Buffelo linkstation of "L" and the USB was also "L".
As soon as I changed the USB to "O" everything showed up as usual in explorer.Why can' t windows just alert you to the conflect instead of just no show the drive????
Thanks again.
as said i think the person that i bought the drive from set it up as a plug and play, so it would come up as L for me, as if i put one pf my flash memorys in they come up on L\: ….glad it worked for you , thanks for the post.
This problem appears to affect only XP Home and XP MCE. I run XP Pro at the office with "F" as the network drive. When inserting any type of USB storage device XP Pro will assign "E". However on my home network where I have the previous two XP variants, they will assign "F" to the USB device rendering it invisible. I've not seen this problem with Win ME or Vista. My solution was to map the network drive to the "Z" slot.
Also regarding purchasing a new HDD and loading it into an external USB enclosure. I purchased a WD PATA drive and all that was required was formatting. On the other hand I purchased a SG SATA drive and it required to be initialized, partitioned, and formatted.
I am a Network Technician Consultant and I want to say that this is the first time belief it or not that the USB Backup HD did not mount the drive letter where I recongized that Symantec Backup Executive System Recovery did not find the volume letter and been missing backups. You article was so easy and WORKED. Now am able to backup our customer server once again.
Thank you so very much………………