USB 60 GB drive....help needed

[bklondon]

Hi all

Hope someone will be able to help me.

I re-installed win xp on my main pc, no problems there, but when I reconnected my usb drive, it comes up in the task bar, that the device has been installed, but nothing comes up in Windows Explorer. If I go to computer management, the drive is show, but with no drive letter, and I am unable to assign one. It also shows the drive as 60gb free, but its full.

I have also connected the drive to my work pc, which before was fine, but now I'm having the same problem.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Thanks
Brian

 

[chog]

Are you sure the drive is partitioned? Was it connected to your computer when you re-installed XP?

 

[bklondon]

Hi

Yes it was connected, but the drive wasn't an option when I installed windows xp, only gave my sata and ide drive.

I have installed windows xp before with the usb drive connected and didn't have a problem...go figure!

 

[jeremy]

you installed the chipset driver after you reinstalled windows? if not then do so it might resolve the issue , do you see any yellow exclamation in device manager? , did you disconnected it unsafely before it happened? (i mean if you just disconnected it without doing "safely remove hardware" first) in alot of such cases it causes data curruption , also there may be something wrong with the external enclosure try connecting it directly (get it out of the external enclosure and connect like any internal hard drive) if the hd is 2.5 and not 3.5 then youll need to get an adapter also if you only got a laptop there are 2.5/3.5 ide to usb adapters , anyway if after its connected without the ext enclosure the issue remains then the best thing you can do is using data recovery software

 

[bklondon]

Hi

Yes I installed the chipset driver which came with the mb.

there are no exclamations in device manager. The drive was configured so I could remove it without clicking on safely remove drive, but I do this anyway.

I don't believe its the drive housing, as I used just before installing windows xp, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Can you recomend any data recovery software? Surely I need to be able to access the drive if I use it, or need to reference it in some manner......never used data recovery software before.

Thanks

 

[jeremy]

dont rule out the "housing" just yet its not unusual for a peice of hardware to work fine and a little while after go south, it happens all the time, i still suggest youll directly connect it before tryin data recovery softwares , anyway i recommend these
easy recovery pro/file scavenger/r-studio/getdataback/finalrecovery

 

[bklondon]

great thanks for your help.

If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to help

brian