problems of an unknown sort

my pc doesnt recognice my external hd. ive tried all the conventional methods, its in the device manager as "mass storage device" under the usb drop down tab. Windows will not assign it a drive name and it doesnt have an icon in the "my computer" folder. anyone know why its not being fully recognised? and how to get it to? also my main hd is sata, and the external is pada(ide). does that affect it in any way? also i do have the most up to date, usb 2.0 drivers. so i dont think its any software or hardware that ive overlooked...somethings just not working right.

 

My first guess is that you have an E: and F: drive...? Windows will try to assign these drive letters to a USB storage device. Here's how we work around it:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Manage'
3. On the 'Computer Management' window, select 'Disk Management'

Here, you should see a list of all the storage devices on your system. One should correspond with your USB drive. We'll need to change the drive letter of it. Here's how:

1. Right-click the disk in the bottom right of the 'Computer Management' window
2. Select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'
3. Press the 'Change' button
4. Select a drive letter that is NOT in use from the drop down menu.
5. Apply your settings.

Now, Windows will recognize your USB drive, and assign it an unused drive letter. If you continue to connect the same device to the same USB port, it should always take this drive letter. Sadly, Windows' handling of USB devices is limited in this manner. There's nothing dynamic about it.

 

a common thing i do on my computer whenever i reinstall windows or anything like that is to assign the higher letters for my optical drives (m: for cd/dvd rom, n: for dvdr/w, etc. ) this helps to avoid this type of problem in the future. whenever i attach my ext. drive or thumb drive , it can come up as any of the drive letters it wants.

 

there is still a problem, i tried both of your solutions...my problem is not a bad dive designation, its the fact that i dont have a drive designation. when i right clicked the only option i had was properties. it had not drive allocation therefore there is no need to change it. how do i create one altogether?

 

if i delete the partition thats going to remove everything on that drive isnt it?

 

yes, don't delete a partition unless you want to lose everything on that partition.

 

Can you tell me what drive letters were assigned before you tried to attach the USB drive?