slobizman

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!!

dai

you need to format the drive,then windows will see it

slobizman

As I mentioned, it is formatted. As are other proven externals that work on other systems and not on that one.

dai

in the device manager click on view at the top and then show hidden devices
then uninstall all usb listings
shut the computer down and unplug all usb plugs
reboot twice
replug your usb in
reboot

slobizman

Will they reinstall themselves on their own after a reboot? I don't want to screw things up. There are many listings under the USB area -- controllers, hub, etc. Do all of them?

dai

windows will reinstall all of them and will pick up all of you usb plugins including the troublesome
one fingers crossed

Promethe

Was it only an box to convert an internal drive to external, or the whole thing?

slobizman

I purchase a complete external drive; didn't do a conversion.

slobizman

I'll give it a shot then
I suppose I can do a system restore point and maybe I could always restore it back. But that's probably just the registry and maybe not the drivers.

slobizman

I did exactly as you said. But it's still the exact same problem. "Drive Install Error"

I checked back in the Computer Management/Disk Management page and it still shows the disk as active and healthy, but no drive letter. Shows my C drive as disk 0 and my external drive as disk 1. I have an internal CD drive that is D:.

I also tried just plugging in a usb device (in all the usb ports) just to see what happens. Same error with that too.

slobizman

Should I re-ask this question on a USB forum area here if there isn't one, any recommendations on which forum?).

linderman

give us a screenshot of your disk mangement window


http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...reen-shot.html

slobizman

I searched around and found someone's solution to a similar problem:

"The error message "windows could not load installer for..." is most likely cause by a missing or corrupt file called "syssetup.dll" in your C:\windows\system32\ directory. Go to google. Type in "syssetup.dll" and download the file. It worked for me. Good luck "

Would this cause any damage to try?

linderman

I dont think so, give it a whirl and let us know ?



I would try it

slobizman

Screenshot attached

Attached Images

screenshot.jpg (59.5 KB, 4 views)

slobizman

Crap! Now, I went into my System Restore and it told me that it was unable to protect my computer. So I searched around and found a Microsoft note on how to disable it in services, enable it, etc. In the process I was able to get the System Restore tab up in My Computer/Properties. But it told me I cannot run system restore because there is not enough space. It showed that 10% of my drive was equal to 500MB! As you can see in my screenshot above, I have a 160 GB C drive and only around 1/4 or less is used.

Now, about a week ago I cloned my old C drive (with Acronis) to the new 160GB drive. Everything went smoothly and there is no problem with any data. But obviously, something is messed up where it records the size of my drive.

Can anyone help me on this new problem!!! Please?????

linderman

I think you may have just stumbled onto something.

Cloning requires a boot swapping process to complete the clonign operation

in as much as you have cloned to an external, the last swapping part of the operation never took place.

In your shoes; I would remove any data you have on the drive and reformat it from within disk managment

then you can re-clone if you want to, but make sure you DONT include any bootable options check boxes

USB drives can not be bootable drives under Win XP

slobizman

Anyone?