External Maxtor Onetouch playing up

[a_rouse]

Ok, I've had a Maxtor 80GB onetouch for a year now, and has been working fine until today. Now whenever the HD is plugged in, the laptop recognises it, i.e. the Message saying 'This drive can perform faster' comes up, and It is also listed in Device manager, but, The HD doesn't appear in My computer, XP won't do the scan and ask how you want to view the HD, and none of the relevant songs in Windows Media Player Work. There appear to be no problems with the driver or USB ports as they all appear to be working normally in Device Manager. Although, I'm not entirely sure that I'm uninstalling the Driver correctly as it seems to recognise the HD very quickly when i re-connect it.

Thanks in advance.

P.S This I'd really like to get this sorted asap as I have a lot of important files on that HD.:bawling:

[PhilEnfield]

'This drive can perform faster' message usually means the device is running under USB1 and not USB2, which will cause the drive to work very slow, if not erratic.

What are your System Specs and have you got SP1 or SP2 installed ?

I take it the 'This drive can perform faster' message has only just started appearing ?

Are you plugging the USB lead directly into the Laptop or via a new hub/mini hub ? ..... if so, is the Hub USB1 or USB 2 ?

Also try testing the drive on another Laptop or PC. If XP is installed you shouldn't need ant drivers.

HTH

[a_rouse]

'This drive can perform faster' message usually means the device is running under USB1 and not USB2, which will cause the drive to work very slow, if not erratic.

What are your System Specs and have you got SP1 or SP2 installed ?

I take it the 'This drive can perform faster' message has only just started appearing ?

Are you plugging the USB lead directly into the Laptop or via a new hub/mini hub ? ..... if so, is the Hub USB1 or USB 2 ?

Also try testing the drive on another Laptop or PC. If XP is installed you shouldn't need ant drivers.

HTH Nope sorry. I should have made myself more clear. I only actually have USB 1.1 and am used to the 'This drive can perform faster' Message. I always used to get this. Thing is, if it can still recognise that the drive can perform faster, how come it won't show the drive in My Computer or any other program. EDIT: As for whether I am using a hub or not, well here is what it says in device manager:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/a_rouse/devman.jpg

I'm pretty sure that all ports on my laptop are just from a hub, and the USB Mass Storage Device listed is the hard drive.

And as for my OS, I'm running SP2

ANOTHER EDIT:

Oh and having looked at your thread about you 'losing' your HD it seems we have an almost identical problem. The whole of my issue came about when I removed the docking thing on my laptop (Ly laptop docks into a larger casing which contains my CDRom drive and Floppy Drive and some of the USB ports - including the port that the HD was plugged into at the time.) Anyway, before I reconnected the docking casing, I had plugged in a pen drive which took up the then empty drive letter D: (which was previously taken up by the CD-Rom Drive) Obviously when I then reconnected the docking casing, the CD-Drive couldn't have letter D: so it took G: which I think was previously being used by the External Hard Drive.

Anyway since then I have removed the pen drive, assigned the CD-Rom dirve back to D: and the Hard Drive still doesn't work.

I know the above is probably really badly written, but I'm not in the mood for reading through it. :)

[PhilEnfield]

Try the drive on another machine, to determine whether it's the drive or the Laptop that's causing the problem.

The only reason I mentioned an external hub was to check, if in use, whether this may have been the cause, so forget that, if you haven't got one.

What driver have you tried to uninstall ?

[a_rouse]

Ok will try on another machine. Just been a bit too lazy to do that yet, plus if it does work, all i can think of as a solution to it is reformatting my C: and I only just reformmated after christmas.

As for the driver, I tried uninstalling the 'USB Mass Storage Device' one.

[PhilEnfield]

LOL ... have you tried changing the drive letter to one that hasn't been previously assigned by XP ?

This might be worth trying

[a_rouse]

LOL ... have you tried changing the drive letter to one that hasn't been previously assigned by XP ?

This might be worth trying
How can I do that If I can't see it. I'm assuming you're refferring to the HD?

[PhilEnfield]

LOL ...... fair point ;)

I was kinda hoping you may be able to see it in Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer Mangement/Disk Management.

[a_rouse]

:o Oh what a fool I've been. Turns out that when I last removed the drive and reconnected it, it was then re-assigned to H: despite the fact that H: was set up as a network drive. Of course as the laptop wasn't docked at the time, there was no network connection, and hence no actual H: network drive. Then when I re-docked it, the network drive took priority, leaving no access to the USB drive.
All sorted now though. I'm so releived too, thought I'd lost a lot of music, not to mention an £80 Drive.:clown:

[PhilEnfield]

:laugh: Glad you got it sorted m8 ...... 10 points for being honest ;)