vista won't read fat32 external drive

[Broni]

Re-check connections inside. It happened to me, some cable got lose.

[Astoria]

yes I have to plug it into a outlet for it to turn on. it is an old desktop hard drive.

It is listed under Disk management. it doesn't have a name. but it says it is online. it has a 2.75 gb healthy (primary partition), a 63 mb healthy (EISA Configuration) and a 74.5 gb partition.

What does it say about the 74.5 Gb partition, is it healthy?

[blazingeagle2c]

under disk management it doesn't say anything about the 74.5 gb part. The 74.5gb part isn't listed as a volume when I click on it like the other two parts.

[patio]

Download and run the FREE diagnostics from the drive manuf. website...

[Broni]

patio, do something, because I'm out of options here...

[truenorth]

blaziingeagle2c, This reminds me of a similar problem i had a while back that was solved by CH members (think it was either Broni or Patio). I believe Broni has actually pointed you in the right direction but to my observation the required action has not been executed yet. The problem is the placement of your "jumper pins" The fact that you have "none" in evidence where there are pins for the "connectors" leads me to believe that the drive (internal in an external case) is not jumpered properly. I have forgotten where i ended up having to configure mine (it's an age/memory thingy). But no harm would be done in placing it in the locations usually imprinted on the drive (not the case) and trying them one at a time. Also a call to the drive manufacturer and?or the case MFGr. should help.I would try the case Mfgr.1st as they should be the most knowledgeable.good luck and keep us posted. truenorth
 P.S. i am not (yet) a Vista user so i don't know if that adds any other dimension to this but certainly the "jumper "location will.

[blazingeagle2c]

I tried all the possible combinations of connecting the jumper but it still isn't showing up under my computer.  Any other ideas?

[truenorth]

blazingeagle2c,I want to stay with the "jumper" aspect of this just because in my case there were other contributing factors re the "external cases'. I actually had 3 ,all the same make,all new.Of the 3 only 2 would work with the pin configuration as stated by the case mfg. Wouldn't you know the 1st one that i tried when i set the jumper pins was the one that DID NOT work. Of course that caused me to question the jumper solution. Fortunately i tried the other 2 and they both worked (and continue to work).I say this only to apprise you of my own experience in case it leads to solving yours.If you have not contacted the case mfg. i urge you to do that if possible.truenorth

[etch]

I have the same problem with my 60gb external hdd formatted with fat32 and it wouldn't mounted on my computer. The same hdd I formatted with ntfs volume and it would recognized it. I guess there is still some bugs in vista need to be fixed.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Start a new topic, please.