Help! Win2000 not detecting my external HD

[heymike]

Hey everyone...

I just bought a 60gb external hard drive but windows won't recognize it! I actually had it running once by plugging it into the USB port on my laptop (it wouldn't register on my USB hub/pci card). When I did that, Windows automatically gave me the "adding new hardware" dialog box. But then, I had to restart the computer and now suddenly it's gone.

Here's what I've tried so far:

1. Finding it through "Add/Remove Hardware"

2. Plugging it in, then restarting

3. Restarting, then plugging it in

4. Plugging it in, unplugging it, then plugging in again

Do I need to adjust some network settings or something?

Please help!! I've already moved a lot of stuff to the drive and I really can't afford to lose it. Thank you!!!!

(about my HD: I'm in Korea and the only external drives available are ones where you have to buy the drive and then buy a separate case/enclosure to house it. The case has a USB port on it. No software was included - apparently not needed. The drive is a Fujitsu)

[rjz]

Have you checked your computer managment/disk managment?

Any errors in event viewer?

[heymike]

Thanks for the reply... after beating my head against the wall for a day, I took the drive back to where I bought it. Turns out the drive enclosure was faulty! Pfffffft.

[InTheWayBoy]

You may want to check the jumper setting on the drive...for most kits like you have the drive should be set to master...that might be an issue.

Also, does device manager show the drive when it's plugged in...meaning does it list it at all, even with a exclamation point or error. If it does, then check and see what error code it's giving you.

I find the best way to plug the drive in is to turn it on, let the drive spin-up, then plug it into the computer.

Have you tried plugging it into another computer again...does it work well on that one? If so, then you may have some kinda OS mess. I've had it happen to me before...if you don't properly remove the drive windows starts bitching about files not saved and such and such...but then the errors started happening while the drive was plugged in! I could never fixed it, just did a reload and all was well.