MyBook 250GB external USB HD

[THE DUDE]

I just changed my external HD over to a new PC (Windows XP SP2), it seems to install OK and it's listed in the Device Manager as a Western Digital External HD but it's not list in My Computer. I opened up Disk Management so I could assign it a drive letter but it's not even listed. I have two IDE drives, a DVD burner and a DVD ROM in the list.

Is there anything else I could try?

BTW I read on a different site.

"Remove the drive from the external enclosure and install it as a slave drive in your computer- see if you can access it that way"

This was actually for a Western Digital 80gig external USB HD. But could I do it if I get desperate enough?

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/hard-drive-support/172518-external-hardrive-problem-wont-load-ive-already-formatted.html

[DKre8ive1]

Have you checked your bios setting to see if it is getting recognized on boot up?

I know this is probably a dumb question but do you have the jumper set to slave on the drive?

My last question would be why not just leave it as a usb drive?

[THE DUDE]

Yes it is in the bios settings, changed it to a 3rd boot up device and it shows up OK during the boot up. In the USB bios settings I disable Legacy USB support just to be safe but I got nothing.

I don't think it has jumpers (well not ones that I am meant to access) it's an external HD in an enclosed case. I don't think your supposed to be able to take the case off and it doesn't say anything a about jumpers in the manual.

[DKre8ive1]

Hmm strange I am not sure what could be going wrong have you tried booting up the pc and then when you are in windows plugging in the usb cable and see if it finds the hard drive correctly that way.

Also maybe try plugging it in to a different usb port and maybe have it be the only usb device and see if that helps sorry I cant be of more help.

Yeah I miss read your post the first time and I thought you had taken the HD out of the case and were trying to install it, so that is why I mentioned the jumper settings.

[THE DUDE]

Yeah it's weird I checked the registry; I read on a web site you can assign a letter to a device by opening the registry, going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/Mounted Devices and changing the value to a drive letter but I don't think it's listed there. How do I tell if it's in the list?

Does anyone have any ideas I have a feeling it's just some software setting I mean it can't be a hardware issue if it shows up in the bios and is working in the device manager... or can it?

[athenaesword]

well i'm quite certain that if you remove the harddrive from the casing your warranty is voided. and for external drives that's not something you want.

i'm not even sure how you could pry open the casing without using physical force, which would not be advisable.

could you try formatting the hdd first?

btw i had this problem when i was installing my 2nd internal HDD. able to see in device manager/bios, but undetected otherwise. somehow i managed to format it after a few restarts. it was also a WD HDD but that was internal. i just bought a mybook afew days ago and it was basically plug and play, except i had to reformat it to NTFS instead of the default format FAT32.

[clocker]

Why the hell is anyone still selling drives default formatted to FAT?
That's just moronic.

[Detale]

I have that same drive and did you use the WD Tools it came with like the button manager and stuff? I had a small problem like this for a while but I installed them and now all is well.

[THE DUDE]

I have no doubt you are right about the warranty thing athenaesword so I wait until I desperate enough. I will give the format thing a try though I'm not sure how I would do this though... I suppose I could try installing XP on it in order to get it formatted the command prompt.


I have that same drive and did you use the WD Tools it came with like the button manager and stuff? I had a small problem like this for a while but I installed them and now all is well.

Here's the weird thing about that I didn't get any disk with the HD. It's formatted Fat 32 and you are meant to get the software from the website in order to installin Windows ME and below but the software you need for the in order for it to run on XP or higher is on the HD which is in FAT32. It's totally arsed-backwards as far as I can tell.

Did you get a software disk from with your HD Detale or did you dl it from a website?

I wasn't able to find xp software at the website but I will look again, in the meantime could I PM you my email and maybe you could email me the software in an attachment?

[DKre8ive1]

You can find the different tools that you need to diagnose your drive at the link below. Just pick out your model and it should give axcess the different tools.

http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hope this helps.

[Detale]

Well on all 3 of mine it was on the disk to begin with and on my very first one I formatted before saving it. you can the software from WD support BUT you need to register your drive first to be able to download some of the WD Tools. If you have trouble feel free to PM me your mail and ill send it to ya

[THE DUDE]

Thanks Detale and sorry about the late reply. I had to stop messing with the damn thing for a while because I really want to take a sledgehammer to it.
I have tried some other stuff in the mean time and I will get any software off you just to be safe. So far I have been informed that the drivers for the USB 2.0 are provided by Microsoft and not WD (at least for xp they are supposed to be). I have a Curtis Mp3 player/voice recorder that all so works as a USB Mass-storage Device when plugged in to a USB port. It shows up as drive 'G' a split second after I plug it in so at least I know it's not my computer.

DKre8ive1 actually I did try that Button Manager but it doesn't do anything but sit on my taskbar taking up space. I'm pretty sure all it does is the same thing the Safely Remove Hardware button does. But thanks for the help sorry not to have mentioned that I didn't think it was important. As I said the hard-drive works as far as the computer is concerned, I just can't access it. I even dled a flash upgrade for it which supposedly was installed automatically and then I was prompted to removed and restart the HD.

So my next question is does anyone want to buy a MyBook 250 GB External USB HD (sledgehammer not included)?