PC wont recognise ext hard drive.

[MQL]

Hi,

Im having problems with an external hard drive.

It was initially used with a PC.

Then it was used with a mac and now my windows vista laptop wont recognise it.

I tried HFS Explorer but that didnt work.


The Ext Drive shows up in Device Manager with an exclamation mark.
Under device status it says:

"Windows is uninstalling this device. (Code 21)

Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available."

Can anyone recommend some free software to render the drive usable for a PC again please!

[luck of the irish]

What does it say in disk management?

[MQL]

Apologies for my tardy reply.

The ext hard drive does not appear in disk management.

It now does not appear in Device manager at all.  I tihnk Windows carried out its threat and uninstalled it!

[luck of the irish]

Did you try placing it in another computer?

[Geek-9pm]

What is the brand an d model and type of Hard drive?
Do you have a Desktop PC with both SATA and PATA(IDE) ports?

When Windows does not recognize an external device there are two general areas of concern:
1. ) The device or the connector is defective.
2. ) The device exhibits a signature unknown to Windows.

To help sort this out you can discount the HDD from its adapter and place it directly in a Desktop PC as a secondary device. For testing purposes, it may not be necessary to close the case. When you power up, get into the BIOS and see if the BIOS has recognized a new device.

Hope this  is of some help.

[MQL]

Cheers for the explanation Geek. 

Im not at all technically mindede.  I plug in a device and assume it will work.


I will have to take the HDD into work to plug it into a PC.  Everyone else seems to be using Macs.

Could you please tell me how I place the HDD directly as a secondary device in a  desktop PC?

Id like to try that before I have take the unit to a professional data retrieval expert.


Thanks for your time both of you.  I appreciate your time answering my questions.

[truenorth]

It has been a very long time since i also did this combination and some memories of it come to me. I guess my question before i get into that is did it ever work on both the PC and the Mac? It seems to me there is an issue to be dealt with in regards to what Apple O/S is being used when this sharing is desired. Different Apple O/S's require different formatting of the drive as i remember (which need to be done PRIOR to the sharing )and if memory serves correctly must be done on the PC before introducing the drive to the MAC. Also if i remember correctly there is a need to differentiate the MAC drive to Fat 32 as opposed to NTFS. I am hoping others that have done this will come on-board to assist as my recollections are vague on this. truenorth
P.S. Using a data recovery service will be very expensive hopefully some other alternative can be found.

[Geek-9pm]

After reading the post by truenorth, I thin k he is right. The drive is ,OK. Windows just does not know how to deal withal drive that was used non a MAC. Find a program that will change the type and format to suit Windows. Do you have important data on the drive?

[Lisa_maree]

Two programs that will mount the drives formated HFS on a PC neither of which are free,

Paragon Disk Manger  http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/
Recover Data for Mac you can download a trial from here  http://www.recoverdatatools.com/

Worth trailing to see what they can find 

[truenorth]

MQL, I undertook some research on your behalf to see if i could find something that related to my earlier reply to your post and found the following. It seems to provide an easy to understand guidance to help you with your issue.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080823112107AAf2u8Z
truenorth