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Windows XP Won't Recognize WD Ext Hard Drive

Last answer on Nov 10, 2009 6:38:17 am GMT Captain Jack, on Sep 1, 2008 7:23:53 pm BST

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Hello,

Installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 Update and now my computer won't recognize my Western Digital External Hard Drive (HD). I tried hooking the HD up to my laptop and that worked so at least the HD is working. I did a system restore to my computer to a time before the Service Pack 3 update. Still no luck.

Configuration: Windows XP
Internet Explorer 7.0

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brakers, on Sep 1, 2008 8:39:00 pm BST

Hi there
I dont know if this will work for you but looking on the web I came accross someone who had a similar problem they fixed it as follows.
They installed Tweak UI and then

She I was able to get the drive recognized using "Tweak UI", clicking on My Computer, Drives,and check marking Drive F. It did the trick.
Hope this helps
Kindest Regards Tony B.

Reply to brakers

suresh, on Nov 4, 2008 8:25:32 am GMT

Dear Brakes,
Thanks alot for your valuable suggestion. I am having the same problem and as per your message I downloaded this tweak and it worked for me.
One think i wish to tell all as per my experience: Soon after installing Tweak software , for me it was not worked but restarting three to four times it worked for me - I didn't even change any settings just installed the tweak software.
I downloaded this software from " http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/tweakui "
Once again thanks to Brakes for giving this information to all.
Thanking you
Suresh

Reply to suresh

bobo, on Apr 21, 2009 5:11:02 pm BST

Buy a ide to sata plug mother board adapter and presto load xp then unplug and connect sata cable works just fin load all drivers

Reply to bobo

bobo, on Apr 21, 2009 5:13:10 pm BST

Got a ide to sata plug and loaded all xp and drivers switch back to sata cable a ok

Reply to bobo

114

svabo, on Sep 27, 2009 10:14:09 pm BST

Hi. I have too a problem as windows isnt recognizing my external HDD drive letter. The thing is that i have bought a case for my old laptop HDD so that i can use it as a external USB drive. I plugged it in and the PC recognizes it in the device manager but there is no drive displayed in the My computer window.

I think that it may be a problem cause the drive was my hard drive and named C: , so thats maybe why it doesnt show up in the Computer managment/Disk managment tab. There i only see my current HDD. :S

Any suggestions on how i could maybe change the drive letter even if i dont see it? :/

Reply to svabo

Paul, on Sep 18, 2008 6:00:13 am BST

+10

I read a fix for this specific problem (upgrade to SP3 for XP) somewhere, I can't remember which forum, that said the solution was to disable the Firewire 1384 connection under Network connections in Control Panel and restarting.

I hope that helps you out.

-Paul

Reply to Paul

luv2surf, on Oct 26, 2008 1:17:13 am GMT

Thank you so very much for this fix. I have Googled for a week trying to find an answer. I bought a new external Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB. All indications on my computer was that the drive was correctly working. However, the drive was not recognized in Windows Explorer. After reading your fix, I went into Device Manager, disabled 1384 and VOILA! I have a new 500GB WD external drive.

Again thanks so very much for this answer.

Reply to luv2surf

tamaho, on Feb 17, 2009 3:43:14 pm GMT

Oh.. thanks
disabled my 1394 then I uninstalled My Book
reinstalled and now I have another hard drive
thanks again

tamaho

Reply to tamaho

110

TOM_354, on Jul 31, 2009 4:22:53 pm BST

WORKED FOR ME TOO! CHEERS! TOM

Reply to TOM_354

DAM, on Sep 19, 2008 5:29:28 am BST

This was really helpful. I disabled/enabled 1394 connection and it started working!!! :)
Thanks so much.

Reply to DAM

brand, on Nov 24, 2008 1:17:49 am GMT

I'm happy to hear someone else fixed this. Can you tell me where, specifically, you did this? I've tried looking in Device Manager, in Network Connections, and I'm not seeing anywhere to disable/enable Firewire 1384.

Thanks in advance.

Reply to brand

john, on Mar 6, 2009 9:05:51 pm GMT

+49

Hello l need help disableing my ieee1394 port l dont know were to look can you walk me through to find so that l can fix my promble

Reply to john

122

Sharp0, on Nov 10, 2009 6:27:22 am GMT

Hello , there i have just reed your comment to get to your 1394 or 1384 easy, Go to you computer well ( My computer ) Right Click it and Click Manage ( if you are a administer you got to aprove it which is just a click to alow it ) then go to your Devices and install new drivers or tweak drives...

What i found easier was to download TweakIU and run it, it will scan through several things to tweak most things
you should plug your WD EXTERNAL into your computer while running why? ( becuase when it scans it scans all USB SLOTS ) if there is nothing in the USB SLOT no device would be tweaked so make sure its in ( Once the Tweak has finished scanning through and tweaking ( STRAIGHT AFTER IT WILL SAY ) passport or what ever your WD EXTERNAL is called....

:D I really hoped this helped, Need anymore details just give me a buz on my email

windoze7@live.com.au Thanks for your time and i hoped i was right. Goodbye

Reply to Sharp0

David, on Oct 8, 2008 11:41:48 pm BST

Thanks for posting. I just did the same thing and disabled and then enable the Firewire and it worked. So far so good, because I think my USB connection is failing. :(

Reply to David

Synyster, on Nov 21, 2008 3:35:42 am GMT

+26

Where is fireware located like were do i go exactly

Reply to Synyster

Jp17hArD, on Oct 11, 2008 4:03:47 pm BST

Hey,

I had a similar problem and going into Administrative Tools and Storage within Device Management and allocating a drive letter to them fixed it.

Reply to Jp17hArD

Noti88, on Oct 23, 2008 7:17:42 am BST

Thanks very much I was looking for ages.

Reply to Noti88

nixtr, on Feb 1, 2009 9:36:43 am GMT

Thanks, you saved me big time. I just got the problem today with my toshiba external hdd.

Reply to nixtr

bunty, on Feb 15, 2009 3:41:17 am GMT

I had vista OS before, I formatted and installed Windows 2003 server. When I tried connected External hard drive (western Digital Mybook) it would'nt recognize it.
After reading all the answers, I went into Administrative tools->Computer Management->Disk Management. I could see all the drives there with the alloted size. There was one drive without any letter alloted to it. I knew it was MYBOOK external drive. So all I did was assign a Letter ( E in this case) and it worked Great! ( I had to give new letter to dvd drive to F, as it had E before). Thanks guys! paritosh.

Reply to bunty

107

Cochango, on Jul 21, 2009 6:21:45 pm BST

You guys are great...Problem was conflicting drive letters. Renamed the WD external "H" and all is well. Good advice.

Reply to Cochango

112

Aragorn, on Aug 15, 2009 12:29:10 pm BST

YES! this works!!! hew... thank you so very much guys!

Reply to Aragorn

fastercomp, on Mar 31, 2009 2:12:46 pm BST

Yes, I had the same issue and thought it was related to Vista 64. Going into Admin Tools and affixing a drive letter to each external drive (thumb drives too) I had attached fixed thhe problem!

Thanks!

Reply to fastercomp

Manuel, on Oct 12, 2008 5:59:40 pm BST

Paul, it worked nice and easy for me. I searched in a lot of forums with no luck, until I found your answer. Thanks a lot man, you rock!!!

Reply to Manuel

Zak, on Oct 13, 2008 12:57:32 am BST

I have a similar problem. My external drive was previously used on a MAC and now I am trying to use in in XP. I have been using my external drive on my Mac with no problems. I recently changed to PC (XP) and plugged in the drive. The computer added it and I can see it in the Device Manager, but it doesn't show up as a drive in Explore. What am I doing wrong? I can't see in in Disk Management either. Do I need to reformat it? How? I tried the Firewire suggestion, but couldn't locate anything in Network Connections called Firewire.

Thanks!

Reply to Zak

mrobles61, on Oct 14, 2008 10:35:57 pm BST

Look into the Network Connections one with the name "Connection 1394". That's the one you have to disable.

Reply to mrobles61

Joe Shmoe, on Oct 22, 2008 8:26:31 pm BST

You are aware that a Windows Machine cannot mount a Mac-formatted hard disk without software right? Download Mac Drive (www.macdrive.com) or reformat the drive in Disk Management.

Reply to Joe Shmoe

DrKewel, on Dec 1, 2008 12:36:05 am GMT

Thanks Smoe for the reminder. I was having a similar problem and forgot I formatted my external drive to backup my Mac. I wanted it for my XP machine later. Macdrive worked fine....

Reply to DrKewel

I'mcute, on Oct 13, 2008 4:11:39 pm BST

Hi
I had a similar problem. my external disk didn't work on one of my computers, although it did work on my old one.

I suggest you replace the usb cable, it might be defected. worked for me anyway :)

hope it helps.

Reply to I'mcute

Garp, on Nov 25, 2008 7:20:54 pm GMT

You're a genius!!! Nothing else worked. It was just a bad cable the whole time.

Reply to Garp

Mihir, on Dec 20, 2008 5:53:43 pm GMT

I ran into this problem when I re-installed windows XP with sp3. After the fresh installation, it didn't recognize my 500GB Western digital external hard drive. I tried everything but nothing worked until I read another thread on another website saying to connect the power adapter to wall socket instead of power surge protector. It worked perfect for me.

Reply to Mihir

andye54494, on Jan 12, 2009 3:09:10 pm GMT

Just wanted to say thanks for that. I could not have imagined that plugging this device into a surge protector would cause it not to work. However, it was easy to try. I unplugged it from the surge protector, plugged it into the wall, and it immediately started to work.

Reply to andye54494

Seal2009, on Jan 31, 2009 4:51:31 pm GMT

Thank you very much for your solution with power cable.
I have windows XP with SP3 and my computer didn`t want to recognize my external hard drive Western Digital.
I tried your solution and it worked perfect.
Thank u one more time friend.
GOD BLESS U:)

Reply to Seal2009

TunaFish, on May 4, 2009 2:59:31 pm BST

I have NO idea why this makes a difference...but I tried it, and it worked! Had a 500GB that WinXP SP3 wasn't recognizing.

Reply to TunaFish

100

Dee, on May 29, 2009 9:16:56 pm BST

Thanks! Worked like a charm!

Reply to Dee

Chud37, on Oct 23, 2008 12:26:07 pm BST

Heyup,

Im at work and so there isnt a 1394 connection as far as i could see, But i was having the problem whereby you double click on the drive letter and it goes 'What program do you want to use for this file' which was just silly. I could get to it by right clicking 'explore' but that didnt solve the problem.

In the end i changed the drive letter (was E) to M and its working normally again.

Cheers All,

Richard

Reply to Chud37

Sm Business Owner, on Oct 23, 2008 12:40:34 pm BST

I had similar problem and also could not find 1394 anywhere in network connections although providing my hardrive with a drive letter worked perfectly. Thanks to all....Go McCain....

Reply to Sm Business Owner

Ankit Shah, on Oct 30, 2008 5:44:01 pm GMT

Hi I try in different way,

I even install the "Tweak UI" but it doesn’t work.

But when I remove my Mapped drive from E, then it automatically comes as WD Password (E :).

So it seems, WD hard disk has assign fixed drive E,
So if someone computer has E drive assigned already then it doesn’t work.

So try to remove network folder from E: drive.

Hope it work for you.

Reply to Ankit Shah

LateNightRome, on Nov 1, 2008 3:56:13 am GMT

Windows FAMOUS Service Packs(3) at it again!

I dont know why disabling that connection in the networks connections would bother with my external drive! BUT! I did it, and it fixed it! Thank you for saving whats left of my night, and whatever nerves I have left! lol

Reply to LateNightRome

broncoooo, on Nov 3, 2008 3:01:53 am GMT

I can't find network connections under my control panel, can anybody help me with that?

Reply to broncoooo

PiersW, on Nov 3, 2008 4:33:43 pm GMT

In XP, the link is on the Network and Internet Connections page. As to the hard drive problem, I am no expert but found this thread via Google having experienced similar problems with both a Western My Book and a Seagate external hard drive. None of the suggested fixes worked for me, and I was not convinced that the culprit was SP3 as my laptop (which also runs XP SP3) has no problems with the hard drives. After turning off the PC, disconnecting all USB devices, then rebooting and connecting each USB device in turn, the problem turned out to be my newly-acquired HP OfficeJet All-in-One. If that is on and connected when I turn on the external hard dive, the latter is not recognised by Explorer and just keeps whirring away (and, the case of the My Book, flashing). Turn off the printer and wait for its USB connection to terminate and the hard drive works perfectly without more ado. I can turn the printer back on again (or just reconnect it) without causing any problems with either hard drive but cannot turn the hard drive off and then back on again without having to go through the same procedure. I do not think there is a drive letter clash as I have given each drive (including the multi-card drive built into the printer) its own drive letter via Disk Manager and XP remembers them. Perhaps someone more expert than me can interpret this experience into a generally applicable "fix"

Reply to PiersW

jeff, on Jan 7, 2009 3:37:35 pm GMT

I had previously mapped a drive just after my local drives; That is,
..... partition 1 & 2 of the hard drive (C: & D:),
..... CD/RW(E:), and
..... mapped drive(F:).

When I plugged in the USB drive, I could see it in the device manager, but it did not appear in Windows Explorer. When I went to Admin Tools -> Computer Management ->Storage -> Disk Management, the MyBook drive was listed as F: !!! But Windows Explorer was still remembering my mapped drive there... so I went to the mapped drive F: in Windows Explorer and disconnected, then suddenly the MyBook device appeared. So the lesson may be that some devices want that next drive letter after the local devices, and that mapped drives will not be noticed for some reason, and the machine will assign it there - even though the letter is already taken... But the mapped drive will be remembered.

So there was my solution - I found the drive in Disk Management : I went to that drive letter and disconnected (ultimately I moved the mapping down to W:), then all my USB drive content appeared !

Reply to jeff

Steven, on Jan 19, 2009 7:05:27 pm GMT

Thanks Jeff, This worked for me.. I had Vista on a Hard drive in a cradle, started Killdisk, got to 3% and cancelled it, couldn't see the drive anymore, using all sorts of tips/tweaks and apps.. This did the job Perectly, Formatting the drive as i type this.. :-)

Reply to Steven

Orange, on Feb 21, 2009 1:48:29 pm GMT

Nice one. I also had the nasty problem of my Buffalo TurboUSB External Hard Drive dying after a minute or two of actually showing up on My Computer (if it showed up at all). I tried changing power plug to a wall socket, different USBs and disabling 1394 port. None of this worked until I managed to change the drive name from G (which didn't seem to be assigned to anything else) to Z, and now *touch wood* it seems to be working fine.
Thanks guys.

Reply to Orange

gad, on Feb 24, 2009 8:43:27 pm GMT

Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! That worked! I had a nasty harddrive crash - three hard drives and the middle one died. I got an external enclosure and was able with no difficulty to get the boot drive to mount up as an external. Great stuff, got the files and such off of it I wanted to save, went to the one other noncrashed drive and it would not be found either internally or externally. I googled and found this thread and went down the list until I got to this one - the Administrative Tools one I would have never tried. I tried it, it 'saw' my drive externally but claimed it was a foreign drive and wouldn't open it, it asked if I wanted to find or fix it and I said what do I have to lose at this point? And said yes and pretty as you please there is the drive in all it's glory. Shazam and hallelujah. Thanks mega cluster of brains. :-)

Reply to gad

Abir, on Feb 26, 2009 5:38:25 am GMT

Hi guys, I've got something to add to this that may save you a lot of time. Following on from the mapped network drives "stealing" drive letters, having the same usb passport drive non-recognition in explorer problems, I checked the properties of all of my network mapped drives. I found that one of them was called "My Passport" under the general tab - although the name should have been "media". As soon as I disconnected this drive mapping (and set up anew one for the network drive under a different letter), the usb passport drive was recognised.

Reply to Abir

116

wcatx, on Oct 8, 2009 7:14:49 am BST

Thanks. You saved me. I couldn't find out what happened. Tried everything. I bought a all in one printer. The problem is exactly what you mentioned. Thank you.

Reply to wcatx

Paul H, on Nov 3, 2008 4:56:31 pm GMT

I had the same problem but was on a network, I logged on to work station only and the drive was visable so I created a desktop shortcut, when I went back on to the network the drive could be accessed from the shortcut no problem

Reply to Paul H

Omega, on Nov 7, 2008 4:18:35 pm GMT

+13

Hello. I have a problem, i have used the WB External Hard Drive to copy my Macintosh HD using Time Machine. Everything was succesful, it works and Mac OS X recognizes the Hard Drive as Time Machine. The problem is when i plug it to my Mac and im on Windows XP using bootcamp, it doesnt recognize it! Please help! What to do? Im not really that computer savvy so if someone would guide me what to do step by step i would be very grateful! Thanks!

Reply to Omega

nicolas, on Nov 22, 2008 1:29:05 pm GMT

Well my problem started last night after coming back from my holiday I found that on boot up sp3 was installed on my pc and like sp2 the fun started straight away. firstly it would'nt boot without the seagate external drive being switch off. then it worked fine for a few hours then after another restart it failed toshow the contents of the seagate drive, though it told me it was 75% full and how much data was on the drive, no folders were visible. So late last night I left the computing running a scandisk session on the seagate drive. I come to the computer this morning and it was stuck at 37% and on reboot the drive had gone from my pc and the seagate itself was making some strange clicking noises and a clank noise every couple of seconds for about 30 seconds. My pc refuses to detect the drive and I'm not sure what the noises are..have I killed it ?

Reply to nicolas

Twinkle, on Dec 7, 2008 2:28:32 pm GMT

Have you sorted out your drive yet? By what you are saying it does look like you have murdred it.

Reply to Twinkle

dave7072, on Feb 1, 2009 6:33:03 am GMT

G'day :)
Recently I had a dual core intel pc built for me and XpPro.Sp3 was installed.
Great pc until I bought a 1tb seagate USB hdd. It would only reconise it sometimes. Other times I would get 'device not recognised' errors etc.. I uninstalled the usb drives and let them be found & reinstalled by the OS - but it didn't help. I tried the external drive on 2 other pc's I have, both are XpPro.Sp1 - and it worked OK.

So I gave the drive to my son and I bought a western digi 1tb hdd and the same thing happened!

I have not tried installing tweakUI on this box to see if that helps but it is pretty obviously an SP3 ERROR.

I ended up buying a 750gb external hdd instead. That works OK
I hope this helps.

Regards,
DAve

Reply to dave7072

DrKewel, on Dec 1, 2008 1:24:36 am GMT

Omega, your Mac probably formatted the whole WD drive as a Mac partition. Just as when you formatted your Mac to split the C:\ for dual booting and made the Windows partion for XP or Vista that you dual boot to, so must you split the WD so that it can function as both a MAC external drive and a Windows NTFS drive.

Reply to DrKewel

Rasmus, on Dec 17, 2008 6:36:58 am GMT

But how do i get both drivers up on it running?

Reply to Rasmus

Thomas, on Apr 15, 2009 4:36:51 pm BST

Dr. Kewel so, i have the same problem which i use it in time machine in MAC, it works normally. But, when comes to window xp, it can't detect it. How to split the WD so that it can function as both a MAC external drive and a Windows NTFS drive.

Thanks...

Reply to Thomas

111

Palediver, on Aug 9, 2009 3:51:33 am BST

I too had a hard drive (500Gig) that I had been using to back up with Time Machine on my Mac. I bought a new 1.5 Terabyte drive for my Mac and wanted to use my 500Gig for my PC. However, my Windows machine would not recognize it in Explorer but it was recognized as new hardware because the Safe Eject Icon for new hardware was triggered .

The Mac runs best in GUID mode and not Master Boot Record like Windows uses and mine was originally in GUID. I used the Mac Disc Utility to convert the hard drive to Master Boot Record from GUID. It was an almost instantaneous process and I thought it would now work on my Windows computer with XP.

However, as I said, Windows recognized the new hardware but would not show it in My Computer. I had to go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management and then Disk Management listed under Storage. There the hard drive was listed but not partitioned. I opted for partition and NTFS. I then opted for the long format which took 4-5 hours. I knew I was on the right path because it assigned it drive F:

It was recognized after the format concluded. In fact it is backing up my PC now as I type this.

Reply to Palediver

bailua, on Nov 22, 2008 10:29:47 pm GMT

Thanks for the tips guys
i found that going into COMPUTER MANAGEMENT in ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS, firstly activating the external HDD then changing the drive letter (to Z:) - as soon as that was done XP detected the HDD and did the autoplay thing.
Good luck

Reply to bailua

Pache, on Nov 23, 2008 8:58:34 am GMT

If you have a front panel USB on your case, just try the USB ports from the back of your case.

Reply to Pache

Otari, on Dec 15, 2008 10:31:01 pm GMT

This worked for me. When I plugged my brand new WD 400GB drive into the front panel USB ports, it kept popping up a Window asking for me to install drivers.
When I plugged it into the rear USB port, it detected the drive correctly and installed it within a few seconds.

I definitely recommend you try this before anything else.

As it happens, I have NO listing for Firewire 1394 in my Network Connections.

Thank you for posting this tip!

Reply to Otari

DJ, on Nov 23, 2008 4:33:18 pm GMT

I have a new wrinkle: SP3 on DellM90 laptop. Reconizes WD 320 fine using USB. I got tired of slow USB2 tranfer rate, so wanted to use firewire. Bought 6pin to 4 pin cable (Dell has 4 pin connector). Restarted with WD plugged in, Windows would hang on 'progress screen', with blue bar moving-so I knew that it was not frozen. Actually went to dinner while it was trying to complete windows load, came home, still not loaded.

Unplugged firewire, forced reboot, and perfect startup. Being leery of hot swap from my old SCSI days, I was reluctant to plug 1394 wihle up, but WD Knoweldge Base answer 127 said to plug after boot, so I did. The world didn't end but all processes were slowed Awaaay down, 'my computer' went into 'not responding' mode, so I unplugged. Could not restart even with Task Manager, so did the old 'hold the button until it dies'.

Reconnected USB, booted up, no problem. Decided that maybe the FAT32 on WD might be the problem (other drives NTSF), so Ghosted the WD, formatted it to NTSF using Windows. Then tried to restore to 'clean' WD and couldn't because the WD software wouldn't 'dismount' the drive.

Oh, and not only that...while I restarted my drive assignment for CD was changed back to 'E' from my rename of 'Z'.

What fun.

So, here's my next try:

Removed WD programs from Startup.
Using USB connection, restore files to WD.
Then, try hotswap to firewire.

I'll let you know what happens.

Reply to DJ

harley3k, on Jan 7, 2009 12:16:10 am GMT

I have the same boot problem with the 1TB MyBook Home edition.

Connected via Firewire it just sits at the WindowsXP screen with the blue bar scrolling across - forever.

My PC Also won't boot when they're connected via USB. I checked PC cmos setup that I don't allow USB bootable drives, so I'm sure that's not it.

I also tried the eSATA connector on the drives and the PC boots up at least; however the drives disconnect after a while with no use, like they're spinning down or something, then I get an error in the event log that says drive did not respond in a timely manner, and the drives are gone until I reboot.

I'm beginning to think that these drives are just crap.

Reply to harley3k

m.mishka, on Jan 7, 2009 8:48:13 am GMT

I finally came to conclusion that these drives ARE just crap. I was having problems with mine for more than a year - so temperamental, took me 3 hours to get it going and then it would fall over after a day or so. Then it went down with "no OS sees me - blue scrolling bar forever" kind of problem. Took me ages to recover my data! You would believe the tools I had to use and skills I had to learn for that! I received a replacement one from WD, and it went down with exactly the same problem after less than a week! I was so upset, I lost so much data, and the main thing I lost so much time. So I sent both drives back, asking them not to send me any more of their crap any more and just give me a refund. My colleague has a "passport" one from WD and keeps saying that it is just brilliant though. ??? I don't know about that but I will not be getting one again.

Reply to m.mishka

alfa-x ray 5.0, on Feb 5, 2009 7:33:59 pm GMT

Some thing ; got a maxtor 1tera, windows will not get further then the boot screen of the computer itself, this being a fujitsu siemens. i always have to unplug, start up; click my name and plug back in, preferably when i'm on my account, becouse otherwise, il get a spooky thing, saing al kind of codes when i right click.
but at least, i'm grateful that one works, becouse the other one; a smal toshiba, isn't even beiing seen by windows. not even in program utilities (not sure if u cal it that way in english)

so basicly, the problem is not really the hard drives, becouse al three of mine are fine, the problem is windows, as usual

if anyone can help, of course, i'd be pleased.

Reply to alfa-x ray 5.0

kefir_sub, on Nov 25, 2008 2:45:56 am GMT

Hello,

I have WD Home 1TB external hard drive which refuses to connect to my XP SP3 laptop via firewire. The drive is detected in the device manager under Disk Drivers, "WD My Book IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device". The icon has a yellow exclamation mark. When I open it it says" "This device cannot start. (Code 10)
Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter for this device."

The USB connection works fine. The firewire connection also works fine when I tried on a PC running Vista.

I tried everything mentioned so far and nothing works: disabling/enabling 1394 network adapter, reinstalling firewire drivers, disabling/enabling drive, etc. Any fresh ideas anyone? I bought this drive especially for the firewire. I am out of free USB ports.

Thanks,

Reply to kefir_sub

houstonemt, on Jan 7, 2009 3:46:51 am GMT

Yes, I was having the same problem. I bought the WD Studio II just for the firewire drive and didn't want to disconnect it. Unfortunately, I went the quick route and bought the Mac Drive program (www.macdrive.com) and it worked like a charm. Opened right up. If you don't mind spending the little cash it is for the program, it worked well for me.

Reply to houstonemt

Asia, on Feb 12, 2009 6:05:18 pm GMT

Guys!
You're alsome! I never imagined that changing the letter or the power supply could better things!
Actually I did both: First I moved the supply in the wall, than in the ups and than after activating moved to letter "Z:", cause I wanted to be sure it won't disappear again. I don't know what I've could have done without reading this!
10X!

Reply to Asia

Proverb4:7, on Feb 22, 2009 8:30:13 pm GMT

Hi There!

I had a similar issue connecting my TrekStor 500gb external drive to my desktop PC (Dell Optiplex GX240). Fortunately, I had also bought a very inexpensive SD Card Reader (Fuji Film : DCR2-161). I noticed that if the card reader and the drive were connected to the computer at the same time, Windows XP (SP3) would recognize the drive and it worked fine. I have also had success connecting the drive to the card reader, since the card reader also functions as a USB hub. I don't know why this works, but it does!

However, it is important to turn on the computer first and turn on power to the drive after windows has booted.

Hope this helps

Reply to Proverb4:7

Roddy, on May 7, 2009 3:45:52 pm BST

Guess a lot of people have the same problem but diff. methods to solve it. I tried using several different cables with no luck but when i used a short 12 inch cable i found somewhere in my endless drawer of cables it did the trick

Reply to Roddy

115

hotmaxer, on Oct 7, 2009 9:50:34 pm BST

I had windows vista in my 320 HD, since i started to install windows xp sp3 windows don't reconiz my HD...then a borrow a 20ga aqnd install windows server 2003 just in order to have internet and find the answer..after i plug both HDs but when windows start cmos etup sees both hard drives but when i try to install the new operating system it just reconize the 20gb...n after the installation i realiz that i had 1 hard drive.....when i put the old one only windows take 2548787 hours to load!!!!

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