Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - "Drive Installer Error" on External USB drive on XP system

slobizman · 04-16-2007, 12:35 PM

I purchased a new Seagate USB 160 GB External Hard Drive for a Windows XP SP2 USB2 computer. The instructions said it required no driver in XP.

When I plugged it in (ended up trying all the usb2 ports), it gave me an error message "Drive Installer Error". However, the little informational bubble in the bottom right told me 1) "Found New Hardware", and then 2) "New Hardware installed and ready for use".

However, I could not see the drive in My Computer. So, I went into Computer Management/Disk Management and the drive was there. No letter assigned though. The drive was healthy and active. I was able to assign a letter. However, after that the drive still did not show up in My Computer. And, once I rebooted, the letter was no longer assigned in Disk Management.

I tried using Seagate's SeaTools program but while it saw the drive, it could not run tests on it.

So, I took the drive over to another similarly configured computer and it worked fine. I reformatted it to NTFS on that computer. When I took it back to the original computer, I stall had all the same problems. To double check that it was not the drive, I attempted to hook up another external drive I have that works, and it gave me the same error.

I called Seagate, but no help as the problem is in my computer, not the external drive.

So, what does this mean, "Drive Installer Error"? What's missing or corrupted? Is there a potential fix short of reinstalling XP, which I don't want to risk on my son's computer just before traveling for a month. There is no XP driver on the Seagate site for this; it says it's built in to XP.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

04-16-2007, 12:35 PM	#1 (permalink)
slobizman Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 33 OS: XP	"Drive Installer Error" on External USB drive on XP system I purchased a new Seagate USB 160 GB External Hard Drive for a Windows XP SP2 USB2 computer. The instructions said it required no driver in XP. When I plugged it in (ended up trying all the usb2 ports), it gave me an error message "Drive Installer Error". However, the little informational bubble in the bottom right told me 1) "Found New Hardware", and then 2) "New Hardware installed and ready for use". However, I could not see the drive in My Computer. So, I went into Computer Management/Disk Management and the drive was there. No letter assigned though. The drive was healthy and active. I was able to assign a letter. However, after that the drive still did not show up in My Computer. And, once I rebooted, the letter was no longer assigned in Disk Management. I tried using Seagate's SeaTools program but while it saw the drive, it could not run tests on it. So, I took the drive over to another similarly configured computer and it worked fine. I reformatted it to NTFS on that computer. When I took it back to the original computer, I stall had all the same problems. To double check that it was not the drive, I attempted to hook up another external drive I have that works, and it gave me the same error. I called Seagate, but no help as the problem is in my computer, not the external drive. So, what does this mean, "Drive Installer Error"? What's missing or corrupted? Is there a potential fix short of reinstalling XP, which I don't want to risk on my son's computer just before traveling for a month. There is no XP driver on the Seagate site for this; it says it's built in to XP. Any help is greatly appreciated!!