External Drive question

OK. I just bought a new 500GB drive for my computer. I put it in, added XP, and such. Now i try to put my old 160GB drive into my external case, but it won't show up on My Computer, nor does it ask me if i want to open the drive or such as it would normally do. I know my computer knows it is there, because it makes a noise whenever i turn it on or off. I have installed the drivers for this and are current, so why can i not find my External Hard Drive?

 

Do you know how to check and make changes to your BIOS settings at boot up? I'd start there. If you've already checked your BIOS, does the external hard drive show up on the intial Standard or Advanced BIOS menu screens at all?

 

yeah, i've been in there, it shows up, as it does also with the Device Manager

 

did you peviously use the 160GB hdd w/ linux or similar? windows xp (to my knowledge) can't read most linux partition types, you might want to make sure that you wiped the hard drive first

 

It was also Windows XP. I need to get the files off of the drive, since that has all of my documents and such

 

Have you used the Windows Disk Management tool to see if your external drive shows up there?

Start/All Programs/Administrative Tools/Computer Management

When the Computer Management tool opens click on the "Disk Management" sub-menu. Then wait a few seconds and see if Windows finds the external hard drive and recognizes how it's partitioned (should be either NTFS or possibly FAT32, as those are the only choices for an XP partition, I think).

Does the drive show up in the Disk Management tool and if so, are there any problems indicated?

Have you tried plugging this external drive into another computer to see if it can be recognized?

 

The drive shows up in the Windows hardware device manager? Does it have any yellow or red exclamaton marks or question marks superimposed on the drive?

 

It's not showing up in Disk Management, and there are no warning signs

 

could it be a jumper problem? do you have the paperwork for your external h/d case? you might want to try another jumper setting on the drive in the external case. - g/l, sos