trouble with external hard drive

[dianev]

i connected a usb drive to my laptop but can't access the drive anymore! the drive just says 'removable disk' and there are zero properties on right-click. it works fine on my windows vista home premium computer just not on my laptop, all the files are there and there are no problems with it. i was able to access the usb drive on my windows 8.1 many times before but this problem just happened today.

 

[johngalt]

Assuming you tried the drive back on another machine after connecting to the laptop and it still works completely fine, have you:

1. Rebooted the laptop after trying to connect the drive?
2. Tried using another USB port (and if it is occupied, remove whatever is in it temporarily to try)?
3. Tried another USB device in the original port that you connected the drive to t osee if it works in that port?

 

[dianev]

rebooted with same usb in both ports (have only 2 on my laptop) still shows removable disk on the laptop. other usb drives have no problems in either pc or ports

 

[dianev]

i did a right-click for properties on the drive on the laptop and on the general tab the name of the drive is blank, used and free space is zero bytes but capacity is blue (full, no free space left). on my pc all the properties are there actually has 69 gigs of free space left

 

[johngalt]

Then it sounds like something has gone iffy with either the USB driver on you laptop (can be verified by trying other USB devices in those ports) or else for the driver that the laptop had previously installed to access that particular device.

As soon as you can verify if other devices work in the USB port or not, we can move forward to try to get this resolved (because hte next troubleshooting step is determined by the answer if other things do or don't work on the laptop USB ports).

 

[dianev]

this is the only problem usb drive that will work on my desktop pc but not my laptop. no other drives are affected.

 

[johngalt]

The best way to take care of this is more than likely going to be finding the device in Device manager, uninstalling it, and then connecting and letting Vista reinstall the necessary drivers.

If you can do this on your own, then I suggest the following:

Open Device manager, plug in the device, find it in device manager, open its properties page, unplug the device, from properties page uninstall the device, and if prompted if you want to remove the driver completely check the box (meaning yes), then reboot your machine, log in, let everything settle down, then plug in the device again.

Key step is to uninstall the device in device manager after unplugging the device (so it won't confuse Vista anymore than it already is). However, this may make the properties page disappear, and if so, we'll need another method to get to it.

If this is not something you can easily do by yourself (or if the properties page disappears when you unplug the device), please answer the following question to start the walkthrough process:

What is the model number of the USB drive that the laptop cannot seem to access?

 

[dianev]

uninstalling didnt work. although the properties in device manager says the device is working properly. doesnt have a model number but is a Verbatim store-n-go usb drive.

 

[johngalt]

So, after uninstalling it, it installed new drivers and said that it is working correctly?

OK, let's make a backup of it first and foremost on a computer that it does work on.

Then, let's use that same computer to check the drive for errors - since DM on the computer where it is not working says the device is working fine, it has to be something else.

Also, what OS is on the computers that it does work on?