Vista - Disk management refuses to assign a disk letter. Help!

I have a WD MyBook external hard drive, capacity 250GB. It is a USB device
and needs no drivers, or at least it didn't when connected to my previous HP
notebook running XP.

When I connect it to my latest HP notebook (Compaq 6720s), it shows up in
Device Manager, which lists it as working properly. However, there is no
sign of it in Explorer or in Computer. When I look in Admin Tools under
Disk Management, it is shown as Disk 1, but with no drive letter. If I
select it and right click and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths", I get
an error message saying:

"The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view
is not up to date. Refresh the view using the Refresh Task. If the problem
persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management, or
restart the computer."

As you will guess, neither refreshing nor restarting makes any difference.
What on earth do I do to perform this apparently simple operation?

Any help appreciated.

Andy

Use DISKPART
Select the disk
SELECT DISK [ID]
*LIST partition [id]*

now select the appropirate partition
SELECT PARTITION [ID]
*ASSIGN*


--
Ramesh MVP

'Ramesh Kumar' (http://itsmywindows.com)
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
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Ramesh MVP's Profile: http://winvistaclub.com/forum/member.php?userid=17
View this thread: http://winvistaclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19005

Trying to do what you say, but assign apparently only works on a selected
volume, (not a partition). I can list a partition for the disk in question
but I cannot list or select a volume.....

Any ideas?


"Ramesh MVP" <Ramesh.MVP.3e3pbx@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Ramesh.MVP.3e3pbx@xxxxxx

"Andy G" <georgi66@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e2riv4U$IHA.4156@xxxxxxHave you initialized and formatted the external HDD ?.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEyvdhZemSg
rgds
Roberto