Vista - External Hard Drive Issues with Vista 64 bit

I have a Seagate Free Agent Desk ITB and there is some issue with it on my new dell, anyone have any suggestions. A search of the web found numerous similiar issues. I need an external storage solution of 1 to 2 TB with 2 drives. Suggestions? I have given up on the Seagate I guess.

What is the "some issue"?

You forgot to describe the actual problem.

If you boot up with the external hard drives they are not seen by the computer. However the Geek Squad solved the issue, plug into USB port after the system is completed booted up. I wish Seagate would have mentioned this. THANKS.

The BSquad ddn't solve anything. Once the autoplay comes in the software installer for the external starts up. For getting past that and the factory Fat32 partition generally seen on them reformat it to NTFS and you won't see problems whether booted with it plugged or unplugged. It will be seen and assigned a drive letter.

The drive letter will change if you boot without them plugged in unless... Well with a usb flash drive I assigned R to it since it has a large NTFS partition on it and anytime it unplugged or replugged Windows will see it as R(R for Recovery. ubuntu installed to make it a live flash drive instead of cd).

If you could help me by explaining what I need to do I would appreciate it. Do I need to reformat, it would be great to leave the drives plugged in, I have a docking station and all.

If you don't have anything on it needing to be backed up presently you would simply go into the Disk Management tool to see if it shows up there. If seen but you get needs to be formatted message simply right click on the present volume to either delete the factory and create a new one in the free space followed a second right to format.

Or you can opt to simply use the right click to reformat the existing partition after seeing it listed there. Seagate Knowledge Base

Once seen as an active partition you simply right on it again after to assign a drive letter. You may have to follow that with a system restart in order to then see a new drive list in Computer.

The new hardware found popup in the notification should appear once Vista detects it as a new removable storage device.

When you reformat are you changing from NTFS?

When planning to reformat any factory Fat32 primary as they usually ship for use on both Windows and Mac with the software help you would reformat to not from NTFS 5.0 from the original Fat volume if strictly running Windows. Fat simply makes it cross platform for use with Mac there as well as Windows especially when running 98-ME, 2K, or later with 98 seeing usb introduced for the desktop for the most part there.

Once reformatted to NTFS the one constant you will tend to see when plugging any external hard drive in(usb only) while booted in Windows is the auto play popup that you simply close out. The same is seen with usb flash drives when first detected by Windows while the drive letter you may have intentionally assigned remains the same for those. The letter for usb hard drives on the other hand can change fast when unplugging and replugging is seen.

Wow you are all awesome, can i jump in here for a minute?

I am having a similar problem and it is getting on my last nerve. I have had a Iomega potable HD for a long time with no problems, and I needed more storage and i went an bought a new Desktop USB/sata external HD a Iomega 1TB last sunday.

Installed it without a hitch, formatted it NTFS, split it in two, assigned drive letters X: and Y: moved back up over to one half, moved music and pics over to the other half. All good.

Since then I have rebooted and when looking for the drive in My Computer not there, check the disk manager, not there. Unplug the drive from USB, plug it back in, not there. Turn off the laptop, unplug the HD turn on the laptop, sign in, wait for load to finish, plug in the HD and BLAMMO there it is. What the heck is going on? who knows? reboot and its gone again, boot into windows 7 beta not there. repeat the same process and there it is again. What do you fellow geeks think?

Really bums me out, because I haven't had this issue at all with the other drive and now I am totally worried that one of these times its just not going work and i will have to go throught a long disc recovery process..... again.

I appreciate any input. Thanks all!

Simple process to see corrected. Go to the support site and look for the replacement software usually a download in a zip file you unpack to the external drive. Once you have done simply run the software installer originally seen on the drive to see those entries made in the system registry.

That will maintain the drive letter as long as you keep it plugged in with software seeing entries for that created. With it reformatted from the factory Fat to NTFS it's readily installed as a new device each time you replug it in once Windows is up. That will tend to shift the drive letter at times however and why seeing Windows installed to external usb drives isn't advised.

With the option for eSata if you see that setup if you can add a port by card in you see the drive run directly off of the board's own sata/Raid controllers and never have to worry about the shifting drive letter problem while it can shift the boot order of hard drives. But it's a bit more reliable while putting up with the other nuisance of going into the bios each time you unplug and replug and suddenly Windows doesn't start?