USB Hard drive doesn't appear in My Computer

[Mark Bush]

Hi There! Thanks ahead to anyone who has an idea:

I have a 250 GB external harddrive. The enclosure is Bytecc, I bought it assembled and it has worked great up until now. Basically, I am connecting it to power, and then to my computer. When I turn the power on my computer, I hear the windows chime that says an external device has been connected . . . but autorun never opens and asks me what I would like to do (ie play the media, open folders in window, etc)

I can rule out a couple things: I have connected the device to another computer, and once again, it is not appearing in My Computer, though the "duh-dah" chime is still playing! I have also hooked my 2nd external drive to each computer and it works just fine . . . so I am not sure what is happening.

The (non-working) drive has an external light that normally flickers between red and green. When the drive starts up, it is red for a few seconds, then turns green. (I think the red normally means the computer is reading/writing to the disk . . . but I am not well versed in these things) The Light has been working, and the drive "whirs" when it starts up. ALSO, The "safely remove devices" icon DOES appear in my system tray . . . however when I double click on it, nothing actually appears IN it. If I power off the external drive it dissapears.

So . . . weird huh? anyone have any ideas?

[merlin_2]

Usb devices need a constant power source?? m_2(If I power off the external drive it dissapears)
Mark Bush:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
but autorun never opens and asks me what I would like to do (ie play the media, open folders in window, etc)  
Mark Bush:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you getting confused with a cd/dvd drive when you load disk into it??          M_2

[Mark Bush]

Its a USB 2.0 external hard drive . . . sorry if I am unclear, let me try to rephrase: haven't done this in a long time! LOL

the Drive has a USB connection and a power cord. Everything is plugged in . . . Then I turn on the power switch on the external hard drive. It lights up, and the computer makes the "chime" noise that happens whenever you connect an external device (ie My Ipod, digital camera, external harddrive, etc) NORMALLY Windows XP Autoplay then kicks in and says: This device contains more then one type of content, what would you like Windows to do? And a list of programs and options follows . . . much like the options one would recieve when inserting a CD or DVD.  NOW when I turn on the hard drive I still get the chimes . . . but no autoplay happens, and the drive does not show up in "My Computer" (aka windows explorer . . . pre-XP)

Strangely enough . . . when the power switch on the hard drive is On.  . . the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon DOES appear in the System Tray. However, upon opening "Safely Remove Hardware" there are no devices listed in the "Hardware Devices" section. When I turn off the power of the external drive, the icon in the system tray dissapears . . . just as it should. I didn't know if this info was helpful or not, but I thought I should include it. (As, when it was working, it was listed as a USB Mass Storage Device) . . .

Is that any clearer? I think I am wording this right:) Thanks for your patience. Not a total newb here . . . but usually deal with software related problems . . . this is new to me.

[Raptor]

You may need to tilt the HDD 90 degrees when you connect it to the USB port..

[Mark Bush]

Didnt work unfortunately

[Raptor]

Have you tested the external HDD on another USB port and computer?

[Cary_GRant]

try going to device manager (Start-Control Panel-System) and see if any "!" or "?" conflicts show up, I do know they just released some new drivers for it, if i am not mistaken. Hope you get it resolved M8. Cheers!