Maxtor HD recognition problem

C

chainz

New Member
Guys i have a maxtor external (you know one of those IDEs they put into a special case) and everything was fine its connected by a USB 2.0 cable and everything was fine. But then i wanted to reformat my computer so i did and i install all drivers etc and so i plug the HD in and turn it on and the little thing in the bottom right hand corner bar appears. But when i go to MY COMPUTER theres nothing there...I thought it was a problem with the computer so i took my thumb drive plugged it in but it did appear in MY COMPUTER.

So why doesnt my external appear in MY COMPUTER anymore like it used to?

please guys any help cuz ive got important stuff on it

Thanks!
 
I've have that problem all of the time with USB HD's. Sometimes with USB, the system doesn't recognize it correctly and the wrong drivers are installed. Usually if I go to device manager and uninstall the drivers, unplug the USB cable from the computer, unplug the power cord from the USB device... wait about 30 seconds, then plug everything back in. It'll usually reinstall. Sometimes you have to do this a few times before it works, but I always get it to eventually work. This usually happens with my two USB NEC dvd burners.

Hope that helps you out.
 
Most likely you need to initialize the drive in Computer Management (Control Panel / Administrative Tools). See here for how to do it.
 
Hey IS_Contractor i tried your suggestion but it hasnt quite worked yet but ill keep trying.

Magicman would following your procedure wipe whats already on the hard disk?

Also, when i click on properties of the harddisk from device manager, in 'details' it says 'Device Instance ld' could this be the problem?
 
hey Magicman i tried your suggestion but the problem is that it doesnt even show up in disk management!!!! although it says that MY HARDWARE is ready to use...
 
chainz said:
Also, when i click on properties of the harddisk from device manager, in 'details' it says 'Device Instance ld' could this be the problem?
Click to expand...
That's definately not the problem, and in answer to your question, that will probably wipe you data. I only sugggested it as a possible reason, if when viewing the disks in Computer Management it says the disk is not initialized.
 
You say the disk doesn't appear in disk management, not even here?
disks.jpg
 
alright guys it did come up in the disk management part but the thing is i had some data on that....does anyone know how i can recover that data i dont really want to loose 200gb of stuff!!
 
We may have missed a step here, hold up. We've established it appears in disk management, which is good, it means it's connected and working.

But we still need to find out whether it needs initializing. What does it say about the drive, in the above circled area? Does it say "unititialized", or "unallocated" or something negative like that?

If not, then it will be as simple as choosing a drive letter, by right clicking on that button, and click "Change drive letter and path".
 
I have the same problem w/ a Maxtor external hd that I've had working fine for over a year, tried it w/ my laptop and works fine, but for my desktop it detects in device manager, but doesn't show up at all in My Computer and Disk Management.
 
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