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External Hard Drive not detected

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Name: splinters
Date: July 3, 2008 at 11:40:14 Pacific
OS: Vista Home premium
CPU/Ram: X26000 4GB DDR800
Product: Custom
Comment:

I am having real trouble getting Vista to even detect my new Maxtor Basic 160gb external drive. I have a WD 160GB desktop drive and it works fine, if I plug in a USB pen, it works fine. I do have a 40gb in an enclosure and the only way Vista will detect that drive is if I plug it into the USB port of an all in one printer where it reads it as a memory card. But the Maxtor will simply not be seen-nothing in disk management or device manager.
It works perfectly on my XP laptop as it should as it is one day old.
I am almost ready to uninstall Vista and go with XP but I have so much work and I wanted to put it on this drive.

Any ideas? I deleted the infcache1 file too as that was suggested but no better...

Anybody, please??



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Response Number 1
Name: jefro
Date: July 3, 2008 at 14:46:05 Pacific
Reply:

Does it have external power or is it powered by the system?

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10


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Response Number 2
Name: splinters
Date: July 3, 2008 at 15:42:37 Pacific
Reply:

It is USB powered but has a Y type USB lead with one USB plug labelled power only and the other power+data. I can run it happily (on the XP laptop) using just the one connector; I have tried all combinations with the Vista machine. The Maxtor drive is fine and the Vista PC usually reads just about every USB device so far so I am doubting it is hardware related.


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Response Number 3
Name: Sabertooth
Date: July 4, 2008 at 08:29:48 Pacific
Reply:

Do you have Service Pack 1 installed? I would suggest you do so if you haven't. For now, see if this & the external HDD Troubleshooter from Seagate helps.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...

Jabbering Idiots: Everywhere You Look!


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Response Number 4
Name: splinters
Date: July 4, 2008 at 08:54:35 Pacific
Reply:

I have SP1 and have just managed to get the drive working but I am not happy with the set up;

I have the drive connected to the HP all in one printer's USB port and I get the error message saying 'memory card error' but only after I connected the power USB end to a Samsung 1000Ma USB charger into the mains!!
Vista still lists the device as the all in one HP but explorer shows it as Maxtor 160gb (j). This is a workaround but just how much power does this thing need?
I disconnected all my USB stuff (except the key/mouse transmitter) and put both USB connectors in the back but still no go...and a strage beeping from the external drive...!?!

I am puzzled, can I somehow raise my USB power outage?


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Response Number 5
Name: Sabertooth
Date: July 4, 2008 at 09:19:53 Pacific
Reply:
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Response Number 6
Name: splinters
Date: July 4, 2008 at 09:33:12 Pacific
Reply:

Fair point mate...I just wanted a quick easy way to get these files off the machine. Cheers though.


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