Vista - 1 TB External Hard Drive Problem

I got a large external hard drive today and it's instructions say to go to
disk management and do format and partition. I messed up and deleted the
drives volume. Now it is not listed in disk management. I looked everywhere
to get it back and can't figure it out. How do I make Vista recognize this
drive again so I can partition and format it?

--


Walt

Reboot. See if it is now visible in Disk Management.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Walter Goldschmidt" <wgold@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gu2tn9$jbg$1@xxxxxx

You are saying that the drive itself is not visible in Vista's Disk
Management utility?

Go to device manager. Go to drives and uninstall/delete the drive. Shut down
the computer. When you restart is the drive seen in device manager after a
redetection?

If not, see if the drive is seen in the computers bios. What is the drives
designation?

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Walter Goldschmidt" <wgold@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gu439f$hcv$1@xxxxxx

In device manager under disk drives are 6 USB devices.
1. - ST3250310AS ATA device
2. - Teac USB HS-CF card USB device
3. - Teac USB HS-MS card USB device
4. - Teac USB HS-SD card USB device
5. - Teac USB HS-xD/SM card USB device
6. - WDC WDIO EAVS-00D7B1

It allowed me to delete the top and bottom one. The other 4 reinstalled as
fast as I could uninstall them. After rebooting this did not help either.
The external drive is not listed in computer or disk management. There has
to be a way to get it back.

--


Walt

"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uqzVLJN0JHA.5544@xxxxxx

Again, is it listed in the bios? If not the operating system can never see
it either.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Walter Goldschmidt" <wgold@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gu5ei6$g28$1@xxxxxx

I don't know how to check it in the bios. How about a helping hand here with
a brief instruction on how to do that?

--


Walt

"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:O7HRQnR0JHA.1196@xxxxxx

Every computer has it's own methodology to get into the bios. Turn off the
computer. Turn it back on. Watch the screen carefully. You will see a
message along the line of "press "whatever key" to enter the bios. Then look
around the bios for a page that shows the drives connected to the computer.

Exit the bios **WITHOUT** saving any changes you may have inadvertently
made.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Walter Goldschmidt" <wgold@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gu5n7o$t8b$1@xxxxxx

Device 1 is a Seagate 250GB SATA 300 drive see:

Before you deleted it did you check its properties and driver status?
Have you tried disconnecting the drive and then reconnecting it after the
system is running?
Can you hear the drive running when you turn on its power switch?

Device 6 appears to be a Western Digital SCSI disk.

Same questions for it.

"Walter Goldschmidt" <wgold@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gu5ei6$g28$1@xxxxxx

External drives don't typically show up in BIOS. I can't say if that's true
for E-SATA but USB and firewire don't. Those don't show up anywhere until
after Windows loads their device drivers. The external drive should have
entries in Device Manager. As well as being listed under Disk drives it
would also be listed under USB controllers as a USB Mass storage device, or
under IEEE 1394 devices. Not sure where-all E-SATA drives show up.

Some external USB harddrives are not detected properly if they are
connected and running while the computer is booting up. In that case Windows
installs a dummy unidentified device driver in its place. Cycling the power
on the drive often does nothing to help Windows find it because the
unidentified device driver is actually on the USB port that the harddrive is
connected to. Moving the drive to a different USB port would be one
workaround. First choice would be to uninstall the unidentified USB device,
turn off the drive then reboot. When Windows is loaded turn on the external
drive and it should be detected properly again as a USB Mass storage device.

After Windows redetects the drive it should hopefully reappear in the Drive
Management list. If not you may need to use the external drive
manufacturer's utility to partition the drive.



"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uq9Us6S0JHA.1900@xxxxxx

You are right. I strayed from the path of it being an external hard drive.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"RalfG" <itsnotme@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46CA4057-B1AD-4AF6-B036-F754D0D318B8@xxxxxx