Uh Oh.
My laptop doesn't seem to reading me external hard drive. I have 2000 albums I can't access. Is this the divine hand of karma telling me I've been too liberal with my downloading habits? Or did I drop it last night when I was pissed?
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 14:40, 9 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

It's karma you dirty pirate scum!
Seriously though, lets see what we can do:

A - Can you hear it spinning up when you plug it in?

B - If you can then do the following:
Right Click My Computer and click Manage
Click Disk Management under Storage on the left hand side
After a minute or so it should be listing your drives on the right hand side, is it there? (It will probably be called "Disk 1 (E:)" or similar)

C - Assuming it is What type is it? (FAT32/NTFS/RAW)?

D - What is it's status? (Healthy, Primary Partition, etc?)

Let us know what it says and we can go from there.
(bill, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 14:57, Reply)

To clarify my Disk Management with an external disk as 3 looks like this, sorry for hugeness:

(bill, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:01, Reply)

It's spinning
But it just isn't listed in the disk management column.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:14, Reply)

OK, this time we need to look two items up at Device Management:
Edit: Spinning is good, you probably didn't drop it drunkenly!
Any red crosses or yellow question marks?

If not Right click on the top of the device tree (AC01 in the below pic) and click scan for hardware changes and see if it finds anything.


(bill, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:21, Reply)

No
Just a USB composite device - no mass storage.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:33, Reply)

Hmmm,
Have you tried it in a different USB port and/or tried a different usb device in that USB port?
(bill, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:36, Reply)

Yeah
I switched my ipod around with it and the iPod gets picked up fine. I think maybe a loose connection in the port in the back of the drive.

Cheers for the help anyway, I'm off out for a bagel :)
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:40, Reply)

Get me one while you're there?
Smoked Salmon and cream cheese please?
(bill, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 15:42, Reply)

It was nom
I had mexican chicken and avocado.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 17:56, Reply)