Hard Drive Questions

moonbeem888

New Member
I have a Western Digitial 1TB 10eavs ext USB HDD. I am currently running Windows XP Sp1,

(no I have hardware issues with SP2 and it gives the vaio mxs10 the BSOD with no OS... but that is a totally different issue... back to the point.)

I have slow USB port speed, (no high speed ports.)
The HDD is fine, used it with many other PCs and no problems, I can even run it on a vista right now, but I want to use it on my xp.

Now the issue... It seems that it is a common issue for winxp not to recognize the ext HDD of WD. Well more that it fails to assign a drive letter.The fact that the HDD only work with plug n play drivers, means that reinstalling the driver is to take it off, and unplug and plug it back in.

Sometimes, I think it is assigning a drive letter, but something is impeding the functionality on the "my computer" to display it, and the disk management just freezes up... you can tell that it is transferring information to and from the HDD but nothing in "my computer".

I have used powertoys Tweak UI to fix the auto play issue.
and seldomly if I plug it in while the computer starts up (while it runs checkdisk) I can get it to properly show up and run just as if it was a normal usb HDD on a vista. But the moment I restart or unplug it, it's the same fight.

My question is...

In the bios there is an option for setting an ext HDD as a slave, primary or secondary. I would like to know if setting the drive as a primary or secondary slave is going to corrupt the information I already have on the ext HDD or mess up my windows OS?
I would rather not ruin what I already have on my ext HDD if at all possible.

IT freezes up the PC when I plug it in...occasionally, like the amount of memory is stifling it or something, but the CPU is around 20% 40%, and "My computer freezes" so does "TweakUI" and "MMC.exe Disk management"
 
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have you tried assingning a drive letter manually.

Yes I have, the MMC.exe disk management snap in fails to see the drive because the program freezes when I try to refresh it.

Sometimes, the drive is recognized and I have done that route too, and occasionally it works, but when I restart or unplug the drive (with safety remove hardware or not) and plug it back in it doesn't see it again and it is a new fight.

WD does not support driver downloads from the site either, so I usually uninstall the drive, (takes me opening up the properties of the C;/ drive or device manager)

to uninstall.
take me plugging in the hdd and
pushing refresh until (in device mang or C/: properties tab hardware)
it shows up
then to open the HDD driver properties
I have to double click then unplug the drive or it won't open either
uninstall driver....
reboot..
(with the drive unplugged because the startup bios says "press any key to reboot)
probably because the bios doesn't like the USB HDD and conflicts with the windows boot system during the powerup state.
windows opens.
reinstall.driver (plug and play only)..
change drive letter..(MMC).
change autoplay functions with TweakUI
and still the thing seldom works until.....

I do all that rebbot again (with the drive unplugged)
after setting the C:/drive to do a disk check during boot startup
when checkdisk starts, plug the drive in....
and if the lights on the HDD blink a few times and stops,
windows accepts the drive
if not, once the Checkdisk if finished it's froze... not really but doesn't boot user menu just stays on the blue checkdisk page.
until you unplug the drive
then it windows fully loads up.
plug it in frozen

the process is hit and miss about 3 out of 50 tries works to make windows recognize the drive... so once it is there, I usually leave my computer on for days, and I rather not do that anymore.

That is why I asked about making it a slave, so windows doesn't fight with the driver or drive letter or what not...

just as a note: no matter how many other drive device (like thumb cards or multi card readers I plug in ) when the ext drive shows up it is always labeled with H:/ by the default I set for it.
 
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