USB Mass Storage Device not Assigning a Letter
I have Windows ME on an HP laptop with its own hard drive. I have tried
to attach 2 USB mass storage devices. One is a hard drive enclosure with a 3.5" (desktop) hard drive & the other is a hard drive enclosure with a 2.5" (laptop) drive. When I plug the 2.5" enclosure in and boot the computer, it recognizes the drive just fine & assigns it a drive letter. When I plug the 3.5" enclosure into the same USB port & boot the computer, Windows recognizes it as new hardware, & it is recognized as a device that needs to be stopped before disconnection from the computer, but no drive letter is assigned. The 2.5" enclosure is powered through the laptop, but the 3.5" has its own power supply & on/off switch. When I turn on the on/off switch, green Power light & the red Read/Write light both come on, then, after a few seconds, the green Power light goes off. I tried setting the jumper settings as "slave" and as "Master or single drive" with no change in result. I also made sure the cable was properly plugged into the drive. The 3.5" hard drive is a Seagate, 30GB, used. I tried the 3.5" setup on another laptop. It was a much newer Dell with WinXP and the exact same thing happened on that computer (recognized the hardware, didn't assign letter). I don't have a desktop computer or anyplace else to test this drive. Could the drive or enclosure be bad? Thank you for any help you can provide. If any more specs are needed, I'll be happy to provide them ASAP! |
Has the drive been formatted? A drive letter won't be allocated until it
is. Take a look at the following which *might* help :- http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....=&p_faqid=1051 HTH Mart wrote in message oups.com... I have Windows ME on an HP laptop with its own hard drive. I have tried to attach 2 USB mass storage devices. One is a hard drive enclosure with a 3.5" (desktop) hard drive & the other is a hard drive enclosure with a 2.5" (laptop) drive. When I plug the 2.5" enclosure in and boot the computer, it recognizes the drive just fine & assigns it a drive letter. When I plug the 3.5" enclosure into the same USB port & boot the computer, Windows recognizes it as new hardware, & it is recognized as a device that needs to be stopped before disconnection from the computer, but no drive letter is assigned. The 2.5" enclosure is powered through the laptop, but the 3.5" has its own power supply & on/off switch. When I turn on the on/off switch, green Power light & the red Read/Write light both come on, then, after a few seconds, the green Power light goes off. I tried setting the jumper settings as "slave" and as "Master or single drive" with no change in result. I also made sure the cable was properly plugged into the drive. The 3.5" hard drive is a Seagate, 30GB, used. I tried the 3.5" setup on another laptop. It was a much newer Dell with WinXP and the exact same thing happened on that computer (recognized the hardware, didn't assign letter). I don't have a desktop computer or anyplace else to test this drive. Could the drive or enclosure be bad? Thank you for any help you can provide. If any more specs are needed, I'll be happy to provide them ASAP! |
Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or
formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results! |
Please post back and let us know how you get on. Once you've partitioned
the drive you should be able to "see" it in Windows Explorer and format it. Best of luck, -- Mike Maltby wrote: Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results! |
Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure
to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop is reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help! Mike M wrote: Please post back and let us know how you get on. Once you've partitioned the drive you should be able to "see" it in Windows Explorer and format it. Best of luck, -- Mike Maltby wrote: Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results! |
Thanks for the feedback. I'm pleased, as I'm sure Mart will be, to read
you've now fixed your problems. Cheers. -- Mike Maltby wrote: Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop is reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help! |
Indeed, Mike - and well done to you too, asvi.
Mart "Mike M" wrote in message ... Thanks for the feedback. I'm pleased, as I'm sure Mart will be, to read you've now fixed your problems. Cheers. -- Mike Maltby wrote: Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop is reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help! |
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