HELP! MY EXTERNAL DRIVE WON'T INSTALL/SHOW UP!

I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

NO version of Windows can 'see' an unformatted and unpartitioned drive.

Right click on My Computer and select Manage. On the following screen,
select Disk Management. The drive should now appear on the right hand side
of the screen and you can partition and format it from here. A drive must
have at least one single partition (it can have as many more as you want).
Once it's partitioned and formatted, assign it a drive letter. Now it will
show up in Windows Explorer.
--
Cari (MS-MVP Printing, Imaging & Hardware)
www.coribright.com

"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

That would be happening because you didn't prepare the drive by installing a
partition or two and formatting. No formatted partition = no drive letter.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)


"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

Hey,
This isn't an unformatted new drive, it is already
formatted and has information on it. The external drive
has been installed on another computer and formatted and
all that, but I bought a new computer so am installing
the software and drive onto this new PC which is why i
have the problem. Therefore I can't reformat and wipe
EVERYTHING off the drive b/c it is my storage - maybe I'm
not following you? I have TweakUI installed and there is
a thing about that
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-
US;191579 but I don't know how I'd fix that b/c even if I
uninstall TweakUI the settings stay the same. Also, I
plugged in a flash USB drive and it works fine and shows
up so it's something to do with this Maxtor External
Drive. I also disabled Windows firewall but that doesn't
seem to do anything either...


-----Original Message-----
NO version of Windows can 'see' an unformatted and
unpartitioned drive.

Right click on My Computer and select Manage. On the
following screen,
select Disk Management. The drive should now appear on
the right hand side
of the screen and you can partition and format it from
here. A drive must
have at least one single partition (it can have as many
more as you want).
Once it's partitioned and formatted, assign it a drive
letter. Now it will
show up in Windows Explorer.
--
Cari (MS-MVP Printing, Imaging & Hardware)
www.coribright.com

"GARY" wrote in
message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot,
install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then
plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor
One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows
up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in
My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager
and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would
this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!


.

It doesn't show up in Manage/Disk Management. When I put
in a USB flash drive it shows up in Removable Storage in
Disk Management but doesn't show up in the disk drive
section.

This is an external storage hard drive USB Maxtor One
Touch, not an unpartitioned new or bootable drive...

Did you try another USB port?

GARY wrote:
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

I tried both USB ports with the same result, I tried a USB flash drive in the
USB port and that worked, etc.

Also, people keep mentioning that i didn't prepare the drive and do a
partition. It is a used drive with a partition and data already on it! Why
would I be able to plug it into one computer and it reads fine but plugging
it into this new computer to install the drive it wouldn't? I don't follow
what you mean by I don't have the drive prepared or partitioned - it is isn't
it?!?

"Wallace Hill" wrote:

Did you try another USB port?

GARY wrote:
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says (contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

If you gave people the complete and correct information the first time, they
wouldn't have to waste THEIR time, suggesting things that YOU know, but
"forgot" to mention!

With that - I'm out of here!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)


"GARY" wrote in message
...
I tried both USB ports with the same result, I tried a USB flash drive in
the
USB port and that worked, etc.

Also, people keep mentioning that i didn't prepare the drive and do a
partition. It is a used drive with a partition and data already on it!
Why
would I be able to plug it into one computer and it reads fine but
plugging
it into this new computer to install the drive it wouldn't? I don't
follow
what you mean by I don't have the drive prepared or partitioned - it is
isn't
it?!?

"Wallace Hill" wrote:

Did you try another USB port?

GARY wrote:
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

I tried both ways. The first time I left the cd in when i connected the
drive and it didn't work. the second time i followed the original install
instructions and removed the CD after retrospect installed. i also tried
installations by connecting after installation AND tried connecting after
restarting a second time. i think when i installed the drive originally on
my old computer i removed the cd after retrospect installed so i don't think
this really matters. this is bugging the heck out of me that i can't figure
out what's going wrong!

"David Nimon" wrote:

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says (contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

The OP clearly said in his original post that the drive worked in his other
machine, as far as I am concerned that indicates clearly the drive is
partitioned and formatted.

As you seem unable to read and understand it is, as you put it, just as well
'you are out of here'.

"Richard Urban" wrote in message
...
That would be happening because you didn't prepare the drive by installing
a partition or two and formatting. No formatted partition = no drive
letter.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)


"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

If your motherboard is recent it may support booting from a USB-HDD, if it
does then the drive should be identified during the 'post'. If it isn't
recognized there WINXP won't see it. If your motherboard does not support
booting from a USB-HDD then prepare a DOS boot floppy with DOS USB drivers
(I use duse.exe) and boot into dos and run fdisk. That will tell you
whether the machine is recognizing the drive and if so the problem lies with
WINXP.

As a last resort it might be worth transferring the contents of the drive to
a fixed HDD and wiping and reformating the drive. You could do that from DOS
as you can't see the drive in WINXP.

"GARY" wrote in message
...
I tried both ways. The first time I left the cd in when i connected the
drive and it didn't work. the second time i followed the original install
instructions and removed the CD after retrospect installed. i also tried
installations by connecting after installation AND tried connecting after
restarting a second time. i think when i installed the drive originally
on
my old computer i removed the cd after retrospect installed so i don't
think
this really matters. this is bugging the heck out of me that i can't
figure
out what's going wrong!

"David Nimon" wrote:

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says
(contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step
software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

Hey,
I actually checked the BIOS and the first priority boot drive was listed as
USB-HDD so that was sort of strange. I changed it so the primary boot is my
real hard drive but I'll have to try an install again - I don't think that
did anything. It SHOULD be recognizing the drive and it is infact
recognizing the new hardware but then it hangs and does not finish
installation even though the drivers are there and everything should be
working.

The only conflicts I can think of are SP2, TweakUI (which I doubt at this
point), and the fact that I've installed another peripheral that uses USB on
the computer (which I'll try uninstalling tomorrow). It's just strange that
I can stick in a USB flash drive and that is recognized fine - so this USB
drive should be recognized fine as well you'd think.

Anyway, thanks for your ideas and help, they are greatly appreciated. I
just saw the other guy's post about him getting an attitude b/c he misread my
post. Lighten up everyone and thanks for your posts!




"Edward W. Thompson" wrote:

If your motherboard is recent it may support booting from a USB-HDD, if it
does then the drive should be identified during the 'post'. If it isn't
recognized there WINXP won't see it. If your motherboard does not support
booting from a USB-HDD then prepare a DOS boot floppy with DOS USB drivers
(I use duse.exe) and boot into dos and run fdisk. That will tell you
whether the machine is recognizing the drive and if so the problem lies with
WINXP.

As a last resort it might be worth transferring the contents of the drive to
a fixed HDD and wiping and reformating the drive. You could do that from DOS
as you can't see the drive in WINXP.

"GARY" wrote in message
...
I tried both ways. The first time I left the cd in when i connected the
drive and it didn't work. the second time i followed the original install
instructions and removed the CD after retrospect installed. i also tried
installations by connecting after installation AND tried connecting after
restarting a second time. i think when i installed the drive originally
on
my old computer i removed the cd after retrospect installed so i don't
think
this really matters. this is bugging the heck out of me that i can't
figure
out what's going wrong!

"David Nimon" wrote:

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says
(contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step
software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

Hi Gary...you're not alone. I am trying to install a Firewire external HDD on
a WinXP Pro machine w/ SP2. I have the same problem. Although the disk has
been formatted & partitioned, it will not show up in disk manager or my
computer. I can see it in the device manager, but cannot access it. If you
figure it out, let me know!

"GARY" wrote:

Hey,
I actually checked the BIOS and the first priority boot drive was listed as
USB-HDD so that was sort of strange. I changed it so the primary boot is my
real hard drive but I'll have to try an install again - I don't think that
did anything. It SHOULD be recognizing the drive and it is infact
recognizing the new hardware but then it hangs and does not finish
installation even though the drivers are there and everything should be
working.

The only conflicts I can think of are SP2, TweakUI (which I doubt at this
point), and the fact that I've installed another peripheral that uses USB on
the computer (which I'll try uninstalling tomorrow). It's just strange that
I can stick in a USB flash drive and that is recognized fine - so this USB
drive should be recognized fine as well you'd think.

Anyway, thanks for your ideas and help, they are greatly appreciated. I
just saw the other guy's post about him getting an attitude b/c he misread my
post. Lighten up everyone and thanks for your posts!




"Edward W. Thompson" wrote:

If your motherboard is recent it may support booting from a USB-HDD, if it
does then the drive should be identified during the 'post'. If it isn't
recognized there WINXP won't see it. If your motherboard does not support
booting from a USB-HDD then prepare a DOS boot floppy with DOS USB drivers
(I use duse.exe) and boot into dos and run fdisk. That will tell you
whether the machine is recognizing the drive and if so the problem lies with
WINXP.

As a last resort it might be worth transferring the contents of the drive to
a fixed HDD and wiping and reformating the drive. You could do that from DOS
as you can't see the drive in WINXP.

"GARY" wrote in message
...
I tried both ways. The first time I left the cd in when i connected the
drive and it didn't work. the second time i followed the original install
instructions and removed the CD after retrospect installed. i also tried
installations by connecting after installation AND tried connecting after
restarting a second time. i think when i installed the drive originally
on
my old computer i removed the cd after retrospect installed so i don't
think
this really matters. this is bugging the heck out of me that i can't
figure
out what's going wrong!

"David Nimon" wrote:

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says
(contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step
software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!

WOW! I'm having the EXACT SAME PROBLEM GTM mentions below (like him, a
firewire drive, not a USB like Gary -- but the same situation!)

The drive is NTFS formatted, appeared the first time I installed it (via the
My Computer/Manage/Disk Management" interface), was then available via My
Computer -- I transferred some large files to it, later had to shut down as
the result of a (unrelated?) crash, and when I rebooted, the dirive is
nowhere to be found! Not in My Computer or even in Disk Management.

It does show up in Device Manager when I plug it in or unplug it so I know
the computer knows it's physically there.

Has anybody else sussed this out? I'd LOVE a solution to this sticky problem!

Regards, all!

Michael





"GTM" wrote:

Hi Gary...you're not alone. I am trying to install a Firewire external HDD on
a WinXP Pro machine w/ SP2. I have the same problem. Although the disk has
been formatted & partitioned, it will not show up in disk manager or my
computer. I can see it in the device manager, but cannot access it. If you
figure it out, let me know!

"GARY" wrote:

Hey,
I actually checked the BIOS and the first priority boot drive was listed as
USB-HDD so that was sort of strange. I changed it so the primary boot is my
real hard drive but I'll have to try an install again - I don't think that
did anything. It SHOULD be recognizing the drive and it is infact
recognizing the new hardware but then it hangs and does not finish
installation even though the drivers are there and everything should be
working.

The only conflicts I can think of are SP2, TweakUI (which I doubt at this
point), and the fact that I've installed another peripheral that uses USB on
the computer (which I'll try uninstalling tomorrow). It's just strange that
I can stick in a USB flash drive and that is recognized fine - so this USB
drive should be recognized fine as well you'd think.

Anyway, thanks for your ideas and help, they are greatly appreciated. I
just saw the other guy's post about him getting an attitude b/c he misread my
post. Lighten up everyone and thanks for your posts!




"Edward W. Thompson" wrote:

If your motherboard is recent it may support booting from a USB-HDD, if it
does then the drive should be identified during the 'post'. If it isn't
recognized there WINXP won't see it. If your motherboard does not support
booting from a USB-HDD then prepare a DOS boot floppy with DOS USB drivers
(I use duse.exe) and boot into dos and run fdisk. That will tell you
whether the machine is recognizing the drive and if so the problem lies with
WINXP.

As a last resort it might be worth transferring the contents of the drive to
a fixed HDD and wiping and reformating the drive. You could do that from DOS
as you can't see the drive in WINXP.

"GARY" wrote in message
...
I tried both ways. The first time I left the cd in when i connected the
drive and it didn't work. the second time i followed the original install
instructions and removed the CD after retrospect installed. i also tried
installations by connecting after installation AND tried connecting after
restarting a second time. i think when i installed the drive originally
on
my old computer i removed the cd after retrospect installed so i don't
think
this really matters. this is bugging the heck out of me that i can't
figure
out what's going wrong!

"David Nimon" wrote:

If the steps you listed are the steps you actually took, then you did NOT
follow the READ ME FIRST sheet that came with the drive. It says
(contrary
to the manual) to leave the CD in until after the Maxtor one step
software
has been set up---and this comes after the drive has been connected.

--
David Nimon


--------------------------------
"GARY" wrote in message
...
I have WinXP SP2 and I tried to install a Maxtor One
Touch USB drive. I install the software, reboot, install
the backup software, remove the install cd, and then plug
in the drive to USB. It says "found hardwa Maxtor One
Touch" but instead of finishing installation and saying
it works properly like it did on my other computer
without SP2 and other things, it just hangs. It shows up
as a device to safely remove but it doesn't show up in My
Computer or anywhere else. I checked Device Manager and
there are no USB control problems and it shows a disk
drive but it has no information about it. Why would this
be happening? I saw a Knowledge Base article about
TweakUI hiding drives but I checked and all drives are
checked but I uninstalled TweakUI anyway and still it
didn't work. What's going on? Please help!