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    Laptop not recognizing external HDD sorta

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by soulesschild, Nov 6, 2006.

  1. soulesschild

    soulesschild Notebook Consultant

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    So i made a external harddrive for my friend who uses a toshiba satellite laptop. i made an exeternal drive out of an internal 250gb seagate hdd. now when i plug it in to the computer, it recognizes it and all, but it doesn't show up as a HDD when i look at my computer and i have no way of accessing it. Any ideas?
     
    soulesschild, Nov 6, 2006
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  2. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

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    This might seem like a stupid question. Is the drive partitioned and formatted? If it was previously then it won't need it again. However if that hasn't been done then you will need to do it again. Go into computer management and check to see if the "Initialize Disk" wizard comes up.
     
    shinji257, Nov 6, 2006
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  3. soulesschild

    soulesschild Notebook Consultant

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    the problem is, it isnt partioned, BUT i cant even find it on the computer. It says installing new hardware...hardware ready to use, but i never see it to format it. I know i have to format it but how can i if it doesnt even show up?
     
    soulesschild, Nov 7, 2006
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  4. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

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    This is assuming you have Windows XP installed. YMMV

    Start -> Control Panel

    If you use classic view...
    Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

    If you use category view...
    Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

    Once you go there if the system did indeed see it as a hard drive the "Initialize Disk" wizard will automagically come up. Just follow the on-screen prompts. This will write a MBR and setup the first partition which you can make it the entire drive or only a portion if you like. The rest can be created by right clicking on the unpartitioned space and selecting New Partition if you didn't make the first partition use the entire drive.
     
    shinji257, Nov 7, 2006
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  5. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Sometimes Windows will not assign a drive letter to the disk. I have had that frequently happen on my work computer, where my USB key refuses to take a drive letter other than 'G'...and 'G' is already used on a network drive.

    When you go to the disk manager, look for a disk (like the problem one) that doesn't have a drive letter. Right click, change the drive letter, and see if that helps. Windows might ask you to reboot, but usually doesn't.

    If that doesn't work, to the formatting as suggested; sometimes things get screwed up.
     
    Greg, Nov 7, 2006
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