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View Full Version : External Hard Drive shows up in Ubuntu but not Windows XP. Any help?



Nickthestick91
01-24-2008, 02:00 AM
My external hard drive stopped showing up in Windows XP the other day, but I can read/write to it in Ubuntu 7.10 with no problems. I tried assigning it a drive letter through Disk Management, but it's not showing up there either. It's also not being recognized by SpinRite. The drive is only a month old, so I don't see what the problem could be. Anyone have any solutions? Thanks in advance!

lynx
01-24-2008, 10:49 AM
Go to Device Manager (<Windows KEY>+<Break>, Hardware tab, Device Manager), click on View and select Show hidden devices.

Now see if you can find the device. If you find it, uninstall it, reboot the system and try again.

If that doesn't help, try re-installing the usb drivers. These are probably part of the motherboard chipset so you will need to re-install the whole set. You may as well download the latest version from the manufacturer if you can. Once you've installed the drivers, they may still not function properly. Go to Device Manager again, uninstall the USB controllers and hubs and reboot so that the system can find them and set them up properly again.

The second one usually fixes this problem, but the first is quicker and simpler and doesn't involve finding any bits of software.

spirex
01-24-2008, 10:58 AM
did u just plug the drive into the computer and start using it or did u format and if so which filesystem(ntfs, fat, ext3) do u use ?

Nickthestick91
01-24-2008, 05:46 PM
It was formatted with NTFS and was working fine in Windows up until a few days ago. I also didn't install any drivers, it was plug-n-play.

After doing everything that lynx asked, I rebooted and plugged the hard drive in. It didn't make the normal USB noise, it was silent, and said that it found an "Unknown USB Device" and installed it successfully, but immediately after that this popped up:

http://i25.tinypic.com/a8uvn.png

When I clicked on it, this popped up:

http://i29.tinypic.com/14y1s02.png

I also did everything that Windows Help and Support (:lol:) told me to do, and that didn't work either. When I plugged it into another computer though, it worked fine and I was able to read and write to it without any problems at all.

Any other suggestions? Thanks.

sandtaker
01-27-2008, 03:44 AM
Not sure if you tried it but i've had this problem before.

Go to device manager and remove all the usb hub (make sure your using a ps2 mouse & keyboard though)
Restart the computer and let windows find all the new hardware, if you get the option show it to the new drivers.
Right click on al the usb hub's and untick "allow computer to power down device" or something similar.

If that doesn't work you may need to start editing the registry and removing all remnats of the usb devices/hubs & deleting the exsiting drivers. You'll be best to search google for that info because it is a few pages

spirex
01-27-2008, 05:26 AM
Is windows and ubuntu on the same computer, dual booting, or completely different machines. If seperate machines have you tried other usb devices to make sure the ports still working

Nickthestick91
01-28-2008, 11:58 AM
It just started working for no apparent reason today and the SeaGate diagnostic utility is reporting no problems. Weird. :\

nsap
01-29-2008, 03:22 AM
It just started working for no apparent reason today and the SeaGate diagnostic utility is reporting no problems. Weird. :\

Sounds like a problem with your USB ports. Buddy of mine had the same thing happen to him.

Zelucifer
01-29-2008, 03:37 AM
Your screenshot showed another storage device, is that a regular external HD, or a flash drive, or something else?

Nickthestick91
01-30-2008, 02:44 AM
^ It's my external DVD Burner.