Hard drive problem

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yakerdude7

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A couple of weeks ago I had some computer problems, so I decided to restore my computer to factory settings. I put in the cd, then started to follow the instructions... then my battery died. Eventually, I got to plug it in and finish everything, but since then my external harddrive won't work at all. my computer acts as if it is a cd reader calling it of type "removable disk" when I try to open the drive to see if my data is in it, my computer says "please insert a drive into disk E:". Its not a big deal if I have to delete whats on the hard drive , but I'm not sure how to do that. can reformat my main hard drive with the cds I know, but I don't want my external hardrive to have windows and all that stuff installed on it. I just want it for file storage (music, word documents and pictures). Is there any way I can recover my old hard drive or easily erase it and just start over? Thanks, Scott
 
I'm confused - am I right in thinking that the external drive is inaccessible but you can still boot from the main hard drive?

When you say 'restore to factory settings', do you mean you cleared the Bios & or simply re-installed windows from the restore CD?

The problem I suspect is either the USB settings in the Bios (if bios was cleared) or a driver problem in windows.

What I don't understand though, is why would you end up with windows installed on the external drive if you reformatted the main hard drive?
 
try going into your hardware properties and see if any thing has an '!' on it. If it does try updating the drivers (USB or whatever isn't working) You might have wiped the drivers when you did a fresh install. I'm guessing your using WinXP?
 
Samm, you were right, I can boot from the main hard drive, but my external drive is inaccesible. I guess I didn't clear the bios... I just simply followed the instructions from the restore CD. And I don't know why windows would be installed on my external hard drive if I reformatted it. When I redid my computer with the cds though, windows was automatically installed. And i don't know how to reformat with out the cds...

DumDum8684...
I went into hardware properties, and nothing has a "!" by it and everythign says it's working. Is it weird that it calls my hard drive a "standard disk drive"? And yes, I use XP.

Sorry I'm so bad at describing my problem. Is there any way I can just delete everything on my external hard drive and start over so my computer recognizes it at a hard drive? Thanks for your help!
-Scott
 
Hi Scott

Don't worry, you weren't supposed to clear the bios before reinstalling windows, I just wanted to know if you had or not.

My first suggestion is to go into disk management (right click My Computer, left click 'manage', left click 'disk management')
Find the external drive in there & see if it lets you format it.

This may not work however as the problem could be the driver, in which case, try unplugging the usb drive then removing it from device manager. Reboot & reconnect the drive & see if windows finds it & installs it correctly.

Also, if you purchased the drive seperately from the laptop, check if it came with any drivers etc as these may be need to be reinstalled.

If you still have problems, let me know the exact make & model of the drive & I'll see what I can find out for you.
 
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