External HD not recognized.

ruzz · 10-29-2009, 06:42 PM

Hi,
I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 windows xp pro. I had a external HD hooked upto my laptop as to save music,pics etc.. I recently had to format my internal HD due to malware. I thought I had everything working okay,but my external HD will not show up at all.
It shows up in Device Manager and if I go into Administration Tools and do the storage part it shows up as Disk 0. It wont allow me to assign a drive number too it and I believe Im already logged in as Administrator(don't have any option to switch users).
I played around with it somemore and got to show as a local drive,but it wanted me to format it and I don't want to if I don't have tooo. Now its back to not being recognzined under My Computer,but it shows it in Device Manager..Also won't show in my other computer as well....

Dogg · 10-30-2009, 01:29 PM

What is the status of the drive in Disk Management? Same place where you see it listed as Disk 0.

ruzz · 10-31-2009, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dogg

What is the status of the drive in Disk Management? Same place where you see it listed as Disk 0.

It says its unallocated? I right click on it and all it brings up is new partition/properties/help...I really dont wanna have to do anything that will lose information on it..

**raptor_pa** · 10-31-2009, 01:21 PM

You can try test_disk as in this sticky, external drives are a hit and miss for success since USB doesn't pass all the commands and protocols that may be needed. If that fails to recover teh partition table then you will have to use recovery software ( r-studio and getdataback are both excellent ) and scan the drive to recover data to another disk. Have you "lost" a hard drive, partition or files in your computer?

ruzz · 11-06-2009, 04:27 AM

Thanks for this info it sure helped. I just got to try the TestDisk and got it to work and now I have my External HD back up and running...The screenshot steps were a major help as Im not exactly computer friendly :)
Thanks again

10-29-2009, 06:42 PM	#1 (permalink)
ruzz Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 5 OS: xp	External HD not recognized. Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 windows xp pro. I had a external HD hooked upto my laptop as to save music,pics etc.. I recently had to format my internal HD due to malware. I thought I had everything working okay,but my external HD will not show up at all. It shows up in Device Manager and if I go into Administration Tools and do the storage part it shows up as Disk 0. It wont allow me to assign a drive number too it and I believe Im already logged in as Administrator(don't have any option to switch users). I played around with it somemore and got to show as a local drive,but it wanted me to format it and I don't want to if I don't have tooo. Now its back to not being recognzined under My Computer,but it shows it in Device Manager..Also won't show in my other computer as well....

10-30-2009, 01:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
Dogg Tech Hardware Team Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: St Louis, MO Posts: 2,084 OS: XP sp3	Re: External HD not recognized. What is the status of the drive in Disk Management? Same place where you see it listed as Disk 0. __________________ Google is your friend !

10-31-2009, 01:21 PM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,923 OS: XP	Re: External HD not recognized. You can try test_disk as in this sticky, external drives are a hit and miss for success since USB doesn't pass all the commands and protocols that may be needed. If that fails to recover teh partition table then you will have to use recovery software ( r-studio and getdataback are both excellent ) and scan the drive to recover data to another disk. Have you "lost" a hard drive, partition or files in your computer? __________________

11-06-2009, 04:27 AM	#5 (permalink)
ruzz Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 5 OS: xp	Re: External HD not recognized. Thanks for this info it sure helped. I just got to try the TestDisk and got it to work and now I have my External HD back up and running...The screenshot steps were a major help as Im not exactly computer friendly :) Thanks again