Dell/external harddrive recognition issue

**jtp** · 03-13-2008 10:54 AM

Okay, I'm going to join Mary on the Dell rants. Does anyone have experience making a Dell computer recognize an exernal harddrive? My sister has a Dell desktop. She took the harddrive out of her old computer and put it in an enclosure to make it an external drive.

When she plugs it into her USB ports, the computer makes that little sound that it has found new harddware and shortly thereafter tells her that the new hardware is installed and ready to use. But when she goes to My Computer or Windows Explorer, the harddrive has not been assigned a drive letter and cannot be seen.

We have tried a couple different suggestions I found online, but nothing has fixed this. Based on my research, it looks like this is a common issue with Dell computers. I am heading over there right now with my non-Dell laptop to see if it will recognize the drive.

In the meantime, I figured I would ask if anyone has any suggestions for how to resolve this issue. Thanks.

JTP
'00 Bright Red II, Black, Black 2.3

PERFORMANCE: Dinan Stage II suspension, Dinan strut tower brace, Porterfield R4S brake pads, Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires, UNGO MS8300 alarm, Doug Whalen Seat Bushings, Sylvania Silverstar headlights and fog lights. MAINTENANCE: Peake Research R5/fcx-II and SRS Reset Tools, Mity-Vac oil evacuator w/ brake bleeder, BMW Battery Tender. COSMETICS: Dinan Badge, OEM chrome exhaust tips, Magnetic stone guards, Roundel valve stem caps, Trunk-mounted Dragon sticker, WI plates: RES IPSA. COMFORT: Premium Package, Heated sport seats, “Z3 Roadster” heated vest (for GF), In-dash CD, LeatherZ MarkII armrest, OEM mesh windscreen. CAR CARE: Porter Cable random orbit buffer, Meguiars car care products, NOAH car cover, Plexus, Raggtop. EXTRAS: Z3Solutions warning triangle.

My Home Page

Giznaz · 03-13-2008 11:23 AM

masquerading as an existing drive. The USB protocol isn't smart enough to give a unique drive letter, so your USB drive letter is usualy the same as, say your DVD-ROM.

In Control Panel|Administrative Tools|Computer Management.
Under Storage, click Disk Management.
In the lower right pane, all the partitions/drives are listed. You can click on the one you want and Change Drive Letter.

I have this unnatural penchant for the letter "Z", so I tend to assign that to my more important Flash Drives. However, any unused drive letter works. You will get an "are you sure?" question, but the answer is yes.

**jtp** · 03-13-2008 12:51 PM

1) The external harddrive isn't showing up on that menu of drives. Only the C drive and the DVD-RAM drive.
2) It appears to me that the USB drive is trying to share the same location as the C drive. But I can't change the drive letter of the USB drive because it's not appearing there. And I can't change the letter of the C drive because it is the boot volume.

So I'm left with the problem that the computer shows the drive as being installed and ready to use in the device manager, but not appearing anywhere that allows you to access the data. Hmm.

p.s. I thought the issue might be her Dell computer because most of the posts I found online involved Dell computers. But I just tried it on my new laptop too, which is not a Dell, and same issue. No dice.

JTP
'00 Bright Red II, Black, Black 2.3

PERFORMANCE: Dinan Stage II suspension, Dinan strut tower brace, Porterfield R4S brake pads, Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires, UNGO MS8300 alarm, Doug Whalen Seat Bushings, Sylvania Silverstar headlights and fog lights. MAINTENANCE: Peake Research R5/fcx-II and SRS Reset Tools, Mity-Vac oil evacuator w/ brake bleeder, BMW Battery Tender. COSMETICS: Dinan Badge, OEM chrome exhaust tips, Magnetic stone guards, Roundel valve stem caps, Trunk-mounted Dragon sticker, WI plates: RES IPSA. COMFORT: Premium Package, Heated sport seats, “Z3 Roadster” heated vest (for GF), In-dash CD, LeatherZ MarkII armrest, OEM mesh windscreen. CAR CARE: Porter Cable random orbit buffer, Meguiars car care products, NOAH car cover, Plexus, Raggtop. EXTRAS: Z3Solutions warning triangle.

My Home Page

**@ MinnMark** · 03-13-2008 02:32 PM

This is old knowledge - I try not to fiddle with the hardware any more - but that drive that USED to be the main drive may still want to BE the main drive (C:). It needs to be configured as a slave.

Try the link below, see if it makes any sense. MinnMark '00 2.3 Oxford Green/Tan/Tan And yes, I drive my car in the snowy winter!

**jtp** · 03-13-2008 02:57 PM

1) This was a slave drive originally, so it shouldn't be confused because it doesn't have a boot sector or anything like that.
2) That being said, everything that I found said that the external harddrive should be told that it is a master, not a slave. I tried it without the jumper at all and with the jumper on master. I wonder what would happen if I tried the jumper on the slave setting. Hmm, didn't try that configuration. But I didn't try it because everything said to set it to master or to remove the jumper altogether.

JTP
'00 Bright Red II, Black, Black 2.3

PERFORMANCE: Dinan Stage II suspension, Dinan strut tower brace, Porterfield R4S brake pads, Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires, UNGO MS8300 alarm, Doug Whalen Seat Bushings, Sylvania Silverstar headlights and fog lights. MAINTENANCE: Peake Research R5/fcx-II and SRS Reset Tools, Mity-Vac oil evacuator w/ brake bleeder, BMW Battery Tender. COSMETICS: Dinan Badge, OEM chrome exhaust tips, Magnetic stone guards, Roundel valve stem caps, Trunk-mounted Dragon sticker, WI plates: RES IPSA. COMFORT: Premium Package, Heated sport seats, “Z3 Roadster” heated vest (for GF), In-dash CD, LeatherZ MarkII armrest, OEM mesh windscreen. CAR CARE: Porter Cable random orbit buffer, Meguiars car care products, NOAH car cover, Plexus, Raggtop. EXTRAS: Z3Solutions warning triangle.

My Home Page

**mbmz3** · 03-13-2008 04:25 PM

I did this with my old sony disk and was able to hook it up to my Dells (good one with xp that was stolen, bad one with vista) and the new sony.

I put the disk in a hard case. It is very important that the USB interface is the right type.

Some old cases that have USB connections are the old style and the horrible Dell with Vista only took USB 2.0 versions and above.

Also, check her device's drivers and management section and see if the USB ports have been assigned and needs to be released.

When I hook USB devices, MS opens that window and asks you what you what you want to use as the default function to read the new device. When I hook up my camera, I always choose Photoshop, when I hook up the disk I choose explorer.

With Vista MS always added the folders to my documents which made things very confusing, with XP, it shows up as another drive.

Note the drive letters were always at the bottom of the list after all the files and directories and such.

**z3RIFFRAFF** · 03-13-2008 04:28 PM

What is the Operating system?
What is the model of the Laptop?
What is the brand and model of the USB enclosure?
Is it USB 2.0 or 1.1?
What type of hard drive is in the enclosure? SATA, ATA, IDE, EIDE?
What file system was the drive formatted with (NTFS, FAT, FAT32)?

I have 3 different Dell laptops and all 3 recognize a USB drive when I plug it in. You might need specific drivers for the enclosure or the drive doesn't work with the enclosure or....

Set the jumper to MASTER or CSEL (Cable Select). The Master/Slave is only for drives attached to the same controller with the same cable.
I'd keep playing! I don't think the heavy stuff will be coming down for quite a while!
z3RIFFRAFF
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**z3RIFFRAFF** · 03-13-2008 04:29 PM

I'd keep playing! I don't think the heavy stuff will be coming down for quite a while!
z3RIFFRAFF
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**z3bigdaddy** · 03-13-2008 04:30 PM

my hard drive not being recognized.... But I guess that is more of a personal problem.....
<CENTER>
just
trying
to
hide
spam!


<a href=http://www.z3bigdaddy.com/><img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p178/z3bigdaddy/Z3%20Stuff/whopoopeda0724_07.jpg">

Find out the real poop @ Z3BigDaddydotcom</center>

**junson** · 03-13-2008 04:56 PM

and a Gateway in another office. In each case, I had mapped a network drive to the next available drive letter (E: for example). It seems that the O.S. couldn't figure out how to go on down the list for the next available letter. Changing my mapped drives to Q: or something fixed it on both machines. If you have drives mapped (even if they aren't connected) that could be your problem as well. Good luck. I didn't have a lot of luck finding much help on USB problems.
Mike

Thread: Dell/external harddrive recognition issue
Tweet

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display