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Solved: Windows XP won't recognize external hard drive

6K views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  bigeyedphish 
#1 ·
I'm connecting a 30GB Travelstar Hard Drive via an external USB 2.0 case to my Thinkpad T40 with Windows XP (pro). Windows immediately recognized it. However, the hard drive does not show up under Windows Explorer. I can go into Device Manager, click on Disk Drives, and it does show the new drive there (along with my main hard drive, which is a 80 GB hard drive).

I cannot figure out how to make it show up in Windows Explorer with an Drive Letter assigned to it and thus, how to actually use it.

I have used the windows xp install cd to format the hard drive as both FAT32 and NTFS, but Windows XP still will not recognize the hard drive when I boot up.

I have also tried going into Computer Management/Disk Management ... but the hard drive does not show up under Disk Management.

However, it does show up under Device Manager under Disk drives as a "ICN25N030 ATDA04-0 USB Device"

Any help / suggestions / ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
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#2 ·
It sounds like it's not being recognized properly, that's the basic issue. Either the drive and/or USB case has a problem, or your USB mass storage drivers are corrupt.

Have you tried it on another machine? If it works on another machine, try this fix on your laptop.

Create a file with NOTEPAD containing the following lines and save it as FIX.REG
-------------------------- cut after this line --------------------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]

"DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES"="1"
-------------------------- cut before this line --------------------------------

Double click on FIX.REG and say yes to the Merge Into Registry question.

Unplug ALL USB devices.
Open Device Manager.
View, Show Hidden Devices.
Uninstall all devices under USB Controllers.
Uninstall all devices under Disk Drives that you know are not present.
Uninstall all devices under Storage Volumes. Say no to any reboot prompts until you are finished. Also, if a Storage Volume doesn't uninstall, ignore it and move to the next one.
If you have a yellow ? with unknown devices, uninstall all of the entries there as well.

When this is done, reboot TWICE.

Reconnect the USB devices and see if they're recognized properly.
 
#5 ·
I am having the same problem....windows knows something is plugged in and starts the Found New Hardware wizard. The hard drive works fine when plugged into other computers. I created the FIX.REG file, and did exactly as you said, rebooted twice, but now the USB ports don't work at all. The Found New Hardware wizards opens up automatically after booting up even when there is absolutely nothing plugged in.
please help!

thank you!!
 
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