External Hard drive not seen by computer

O

owengeorge

New Member
Hi there, about 2 years ago I bought an external hard drive, it is a maxtor diamondmax21 drive in an external case. Recently the power lead messed up, and I got another one, identical voltages etc.

Now the drive turns on, the light goes green, fan operates etc, as it did before the problem. However, when I plug it into my laptop (Dell inspiron running windows XP) nothing happens, the computer makes no noise to acknowledge it, the drive does not come up uner my computer and i cant find it no matter how hard i try. I've tried it on friends laptops and it doesnt show up either. It hasn't been dropped or even moved since last use.

Any thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Your first step should be to write down the model number, make, size etc. and go to the manufacturers website and look for any drivers needed for your XP machine.
 
The above poster is wrong XP and Vista have built in drivers for mass storage devices. My guess would be is that something more then just the power lead got messed up or it caused a short in the device when it went out. It's also possiable the driver got emssed up when the power plug went out. What you can do is to plug the drive and see if it appears in the device manager or if an unknown device appears. Delete said device and unplug the drive. Then reboot and plug the drive back in.
 
How was my information wrong? I have had devices particularly certain flash drives that window hasn't recognized. And since it wasn't being recognized but powering on, yes his next step would be to find a driver. You can't always expect your OS to do everything. Thank you for looking out for me though.
 
I've been to the maxtor site and they say that XP should handle the drivers. It isn't registering in disc manager as unknown device or otherwise. While I was on the Maxtor site I learned that it is still under warranty, might be my best bet? i would lose everything on it though...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top