maxtor basics portable storage 80GB not detected by windows

If you think the problem is a driver one - there's something you can do. Open device manager (Win+Pause > Hardware > Device Manager). Pick the unrecognised device (usually marked by a yellow question mark), right click and choose updated driver. Pick from the windows usb starage drivers - the dafault one should work fine. Sometimes the hard drive would not work however, what happens is that the controller gets recognised and the drive itself does not. You should really update to SP3, also going to the manufacturer's website and downloading the manual may prove helpful - hopefully you'll figure it our. Good luck

Boyan Syarov

Assuming that this is a USB drive, setting that jumper will not change much.

Please confirm interface type please 100%....thanks.

Your external drive may be USB 3.0 or 2.0 and your system may be USB 2.0 or 1.0. Check to see if the ports are compatible or at least greater than the HD.

My external drive is USB 2.0 & my system is also USB 2.0.

Today, I showed the problem to a software engineer, & even he could'nt figure out. Everything is o.k.

I tried to find answer on google but in vain.

I even tried to download the driver from the Maxtor website. Again no use.

I don't know what the hell is wrong.

The same drive works on my friend's PC having same config as mine. And even my USB 2.0 ports are detecting pen drive or mobile USB cable.

This is weird.

As far as I am aware, USB 3.0 is not yet generally available......

USB 1.0 and 2.0 are compatible and will work, albeit at the speed of the slowest device.....that is 2.0 device in a 1.0 slot = 1.0 speed

1.0 Device in a 2.0 slot = 1.0 speed.

Only a 2.0 device im a 2.0 slot = 2.0 speed........

1.0 is apallingly slow for a disc drive.......

how to check the port speed and device speed?

There is a set of USB storage drivers called USBSTOR (usbstor.sys, usbstor.pnf, usbstor.inf): these could be corrupt. Pull them from a working system an put usbstor.inf and usbstor.pnf into your %systemroot%\inf folder. Usbstor.sys goes into your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.

Before you actually replace the drivers, however, it would be best to look at your Disk Management mmc plug in (R click on My Computer, select Manage, select Disk Management) and see if the drive is even being seen by the system. If this drive was previously attached to a Win2k or WinXP (not sure about Vista) system, you will need to IMPORT the drive (it will have the previous system's disk signsture on it) for it to be seen and assigned a drive letter.

Keep us posted...

GA to Poppaman, I agree that you need to look in Disk Management to see if the drive is showing up there. I'm not sure of the exact situation that causes it, but if the external drive has had a drive letter assigned on another system, and that drive letter is in use on your system, the drive will not show up in Windows Explorer until you go to the Disk Management console and assign it an available drive letter. I've had this happen on USB flash drives. It will show up the list as shown below, but it will not have a letter assigned. Right click on the drive information, and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". You will probably need to be logged in as an Administrator to do this. Good luck!

Tom

thank you very much - your answer was spot on (but you knew that already !) I however, didn't......Well and truely chuffed !

I can't locate %systemroot%\inf & %systemroot%\system32\drivers.

I already tried 'Manage' option but it was of no use. It simply doesn't show the drive at all.

I even tried Maxtor's site & downloaded the necessary drivers.

By this time I would have thrown away the damn thing but the point is, it works on my friend's PC as I mentioned earlier.

I have one external 300 GB One Touch Maxtor that Vista sometimes does not recognize and I have to unplug it and turn the switch off.

And then replug and then turn on and it recognizes it.

Try Maxtor's site for troubleshooting tips and downloads?

http://www.seagate.com/maxtor/

Most newer motherboards will detect a USB drive in POST. POST is what you see in the very beginning of starting up. Look in your bios to see if your computer see the drive at all. If not then the external enclosure MAY be bad. If it does see it then you need to check if whether or not the drive is formatted. If it is not formatted then you can check it in Control panel / administrative tools / computer management / Disk management.

Hello PC,

When you say you connect both connectors (power and data) to the computer, is the power cable a normal power line with a transformer on it (wall wart). Does the drive seem to activate when you plug it in?

We had some small external drives that had to be connected to a powered USB plug and the USB plugs that were on the monitors had a extension cable from the standard USB drive. There was not enough power at the remote USB drive to get the drives to operate and be recognized.

I know this is a trivial answer, but just make sure that the drive is getting power. That would keep it from being recognized by the computer....

Calvin

My friend doesn't even plugs in the power USB cable. But, I tried it, thinking that the unit is not getting sufficient power. It glows properly. But, how would I know that it is getting enough power.

By the way, when you put your ear near to the drive you can hear a small continuous 'clicking sound' in it. I don't know whether that is abnormal.

With your recent posts, you seem to confirm that you can only have a software/hardware problem in your PC/Laptop only......

I had a similar problem and it turned out that XP had shut it down. Reversing that made the drive instantly available....go into system and then hardware.....then look for a USB mass storage device.....the rest is easy....

PC,

In looking at the power USB cable, does it look like something you'd plug into a wall socket? Many USB devices get power from the PC through the cable, but the amount of power available through the USB plug is not very much. As far as how do you know if you are getting sufficient power, that is not easy to tell. It appears that you have a power LED, but you could get enough power to light the LED and not to properly power the Drive.

Also, I'm a little concerned about the "clicking" you describe. You will hear a little noise as the drive spins and as the head reads on the drive after power-up, but a constant "clicking" (click, click, click) could mean that the drive has failed.

If you can take it back to your friend's computer and retry it, looking at where he/she plugs it in (where is the USB plug, i.e.,in the main computer or in a powered USB Hub) and making sure that they can read the drive, this might help confirm that the drive is still fine.

If you have plugged the drive into one of the USB plugs on the case of your computer, then there should be enough power to run a small hard drive. If you have used an extension plug of any kind out of the USB Plug, there could be enough power loss in the extension to not leave enough for the drive.

Again, there are more complex possibilities that could be the problem. I'm just suggesting a look at one of the easier ones.

Calvin

Usually there is enough power for a 2.5" disk, but not always for a 3.5" generally speaking....

My concern in this case is that it seems that OP doesn't seem to see a remote storage device to trouble-shoot. I'm not sure what would prevent the computer from identifying an unknown device or something when the disk drive is plugged in...

Calvin

If it says there is a USB mass storage device, it is surely the only one connected, you cannot make any more problems than you already have, try it.....if nothing is shown, then my idea is not correct.

XP does some strange things, as do all Windows versions......

Actually my friend is out of town for two weeks. But, again I don't think he will help as we have already discussed the problem.

Yesterday I gave the drive to my other friend & his system detected the hardware.

He gave me another storage device of different make to check for detection & there was no use.

I remember some six months ago my system quickly detected a mass storage device of 80 GB.

As far as power cable is concerned it is just like a normal USB cable. I have VIA P4M266A MB motherboard with 4 built in USB 2.0 ports. Pentium 4 processor 2.00 GHz.

I even formatted my C drive for any corrupted USB driver.

Hi guys,

Sounds like the problem I just had with my new Maxtor One-Touch. Got all excited, plugged it in with both USB cables, loaded the Manager and voila - there it was. I played with the Manager, changed some settings, set some schedules, set backups etc, turned off the caching so I could remove it without having to hit the "Safely Remove Hardware" button, then unplugged it. Plugged it into my laptop - nada, nuthin', zilch. Went through all the gyrations mentioned above, but nothing. Laptop would not recognize it. However, the "Safely Remove Hardware" popup could see it.

Turns out, I had set security ON, so access required a password. For that, I had to plug back into my PC, take security OFF, then plug into the laptop and suddenly became visible.

Worth a shot.

Grae

If you still can not have the drive recognized by windows try going to Maxtor.com and downloading Discwizard or Maxblast, that is Maxtors software. It has found maxtor drives before for me while I have had this same problem. Be careful about not partitioning or formatting the drive because you could lose all your data.

Try plugging into a USB port that is directly on the motherboard (in the back side of the computer, (if this is a tower).

I had same issue before, did not like the port on the front of the case that was jumpered to the mother board inside.

Its probably not the reason its not working, but you should update your PC immediately to the latest levels of XP. You never know, it might help.....

This is Kandarp Trivedi...

I had exactly the same problem..I went to the trouble shooting site and followed the instruction which mentions the change of usb ports at the back of the PC.

It worked.

cheers

I had the same problem on my Maxtor Basics portable 250g. I replaced the lead with a single one a friend gave me, it has a small black barrel on it. Sorted! The new usb lead for my old printer also has a barrel. I got this from Maplins.

hope this helps as I was about to junk the Maxtor, and my old printer cable would not fit my laptop.