USB external hard drive not showing up in My Computer W98SE.

[DZip]

I am having problems with an external USB hard drive (Maxtor 3000LE). I am using Windows 98 second edition with all patches and fixes installed. Here is my problem: I have the external hard drive connected to PCI to USB card and the power is switched at a surge protector. All drivers have been loaded. When I switch on the power to the external hard drive the icon appears in the quick launch toolbar like it is supposed to. In "My Computer" there is no listing for this device. When I look in the device manager under hard disks I see the Maxtor 3000le as well as my other fixed hard drives. If this device is not listed in "My Computer" I can't save or read any of the files on the external hard disk. I have used this device before on this computer before and had no problems but since this is a family computer, others have added downloaded software (yes I have anti-virus protection and it is kept current). What could be causing it to not show up in "My Computer"?

 

[Zepper]

Perhaps it is not partitioned and formatted yet. Read the instructions for it to see what you need to do. Drives have to be partitioned and formatted to show up in My Computer.
.bh.

 

[DZip]

I reformatted using MaxBlast3 software as recommended on Maxtor's website. It still does not show up in "My Computer". Any other ideas?

 

[Trashman]

Gotta love these types of problems....could be many a things.
Had a bit of time and searched around regarding this problem of yours, nothing really solid to go on.
Hard part is, is that it was at one time working properly.

Things i found that may, and thats streching it, fix......Win98 has a update regarding mass storage or something of the sort....its mainly for firewire, but it adds a function that you could be lackin....maybe.
When you plug in a usb device such as your external drive....down in the taskbar, it shows a icon which allows you to "safely remove hardware" if thats not showing up maybe that update would fix.

Also with that external drive, you also got a cd, to install....assuming you did... but?

I'd also check on newer drivers for that usb pci card, that could be another, or maybe try not connecting that drive to those ports, try the motherboard ports, probably usb1.1, thats why ya have a pci card for usb 2.0.....maybe by just going with motherboard usb ports, you may find that the card or those drivers are the reason.

And last but not least, have you tried this....when you open my computer, and it shows all drives, but not the usb drive, right click on a open section in that window and click refresh, does that make the usb drive appear??

Best of luck tryin to figure out.....these were things i came across through a few searches.

Richard

 

[Zepper]

Also try installing the latest ASPI layer software - download from adaptec.com . If you haven't done it already, you will also need to install the latest USB2 driver for Win98 that came with your mobo - get the latest from the Epox or nVidia site (oops, that may be wrong unless the mobo in question is the same one in your system link on AT - IAC, get the driver from the mobo mfr. or the chipset mfr.). I would also uninstall any special drivers used by the drive - do it by the book. And then reboot the computer with the drive disconnected. Then reinstall the drivers - once again by the book! See if that helps. And Win98 also has a USB2. patch which should have come with the PCI USB card, but you may need to DL it yourself.
.bh.

 

[DZip]

I reformatted using MaxBlast3 and it confirms 1 partition, fat32, and 40.9GB. I have noticed that the red LED on the front of my Maxtor 3000LE does not come on when doing the format. Shouldn't the LED at least brink as the formatting is taking place? I thought the red LED shows read/write activity.

 

[Googer]

I know this to be true, it's a sad fact but when you add a USB 2.0 PCI card to a computer running windows 98 or ME it will only run at USB 1.1 speeds.

 

[Googer]

Oh, Since Win98 often requires drivers for removiable usb storage and windows 2k and XP dont.
[*]Check to see if Maxtor has the right drivers for windows 98.
[*]Also check the web site of the maker of your usb adapter for any driver updates as well.
These should be the first steps in troubleshooting an operating system error.
Option #3 would be to upgrade to 2k since that will requre less resources than xp. An os upgrade almost always does the trick.

 

[sturk]

I had the same problem (other brand hd).
At the shop the disk was formatted already, they had made a ntsf partition.
win98 does not recognise this type.
a friend of mine solved it on his XP pc: using fdisk or partitionmagic did not work.
what did work: under xp there is a partition program, make a fat32 partition with this program.
good luck