USB Mass Storage Device not Assigning a Letter
 

I have Windows ME on an HP laptop with its own hard drive. I have tried
to attach 2 USB mass storage devices. One is a hard drive enclosure
with a 3.5" (desktop) hard drive & the other is a hard drive enclosure
with a 2.5" (laptop) drive. When I plug the 2.5" enclosure in and boot
the computer, it recognizes the drive just fine & assigns it a drive
letter. When I plug the 3.5" enclosure into the same USB port & boot
the computer, Windows recognizes it as new hardware, & it is recognized
as a device that needs to be stopped before disconnection from the
computer, but no drive letter is assigned.

The 2.5" enclosure is powered through the laptop, but the 3.5" has its
own power supply & on/off switch. When I turn on the on/off switch,
green Power light & the red Read/Write light both come on, then, after
a few seconds, the green Power light goes off. I tried setting the
jumper settings as "slave" and as "Master or single drive" with no
change in result. I also made sure the cable was properly plugged into
the drive.

The 3.5" hard drive is a Seagate, 30GB, used. I tried the 3.5" setup on
another laptop. It was a much newer Dell with WinXP and the exact same
thing happened on that computer (recognized the hardware, didn't assign
letter). I don't have a desktop computer or anyplace else to test this
drive. Could the drive or enclosure be bad?

Thank you for any help you can provide. If any more specs are needed,
I'll be happy to provide them ASAP!

Has the drive been formatted? A drive letter won't be allocated until it
is.

Take a look at the following which *might* help :-
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....=&p_faqid=1051


HTH

Mart



wrote in message
oups.com...
I have Windows ME on an HP laptop with its own hard drive. I have tried
to attach 2 USB mass storage devices. One is a hard drive enclosure
with a 3.5" (desktop) hard drive & the other is a hard drive enclosure
with a 2.5" (laptop) drive. When I plug the 2.5" enclosure in and boot
the computer, it recognizes the drive just fine & assigns it a drive
letter. When I plug the 3.5" enclosure into the same USB port & boot
the computer, Windows recognizes it as new hardware, & it is recognized
as a device that needs to be stopped before disconnection from the
computer, but no drive letter is assigned.

The 2.5" enclosure is powered through the laptop, but the 3.5" has its
own power supply & on/off switch. When I turn on the on/off switch,
green Power light & the red Read/Write light both come on, then, after
a few seconds, the green Power light goes off. I tried setting the
jumper settings as "slave" and as "Master or single drive" with no
change in result. I also made sure the cable was properly plugged into
the drive.

The 3.5" hard drive is a Seagate, 30GB, used. I tried the 3.5" setup on
another laptop. It was a much newer Dell with WinXP and the exact same
thing happened on that computer (recognized the hardware, didn't assign
letter). I don't have a desktop computer or anyplace else to test this
drive. Could the drive or enclosure be bad?

Thank you for any help you can provide. If any more specs are needed,
I'll be happy to provide them ASAP!

Your problem drive. Two questions.
Have you partitioned the drive?
If yes, have you formatted the drive using XP using the NTFS filing
system.

Until a drive has been partitioned it won't appear in Explorer, only in
the Device Manager. If you want to use the drive with systems running XP
as well as Win Me it is essential that you format to use the FAT32 filing
system since Win Me cannot read or write to NTFS formatted drives.

You can either partition the drive from XP using the Disk Management Tool
(Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Storage) or in Win Me by
opening a DOS window and using FDISK. Remember to switch to the USB
drive, you don't want to accidentally alter your main drive.
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

I have Windows ME on an HP laptop with its own hard drive. I have
tried to attach 2 USB mass storage devices. One is a hard drive
enclosure with a 3.5" (desktop) hard drive & the other is a hard
drive enclosure with a 2.5" (laptop) drive. When I plug the 2.5"
enclosure in and boot the computer, it recognizes the drive just fine
& assigns it a drive letter. When I plug the 3.5" enclosure into the
same USB port & boot the computer, Windows recognizes it as new
hardware, & it is recognized as a device that needs to be stopped
before disconnection from the computer, but no drive letter is
assigned.

The 2.5" enclosure is powered through the laptop, but the 3.5" has its
own power supply & on/off switch. When I turn on the on/off switch,
green Power light & the red Read/Write light both come on, then, after
a few seconds, the green Power light goes off. I tried setting the
jumper settings as "slave" and as "Master or single drive" with no
change in result. I also made sure the cable was properly plugged into
the drive.

The 3.5" hard drive is a Seagate, 30GB, used. I tried the 3.5" setup
on another laptop. It was a much newer Dell with WinXP and the exact
same thing happened on that computer (recognized the hardware, didn't
assign letter). I don't have a desktop computer or anyplace else to
test this drive. Could the drive or enclosure be bad?

Thank you for any help you can provide. If any more specs are needed,
I'll be happy to provide them ASAP!

Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or
formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good
leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results!

Please post back and let us know how you get on. Once you've partitioned
the drive you should be able to "see" it in Windows Explorer and format
it.

Best of luck,
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or
formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good
leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results!

Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure
to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop is
reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help!

Mike M wrote:
Please post back and let us know how you get on. Once you've partitioned
the drive you should be able to "see" it in Windows Explorer and format
it.

Best of luck,
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

Thanks so much for the suggestions & info! I have not partitioned or
formatted the drive. I didn't know how, but you have given me good
leads to follow now! I will work on them & post the results!

Thanks for the feedback. I'm pleased, as I'm sure Mart will be, to read
you've now fixed your problems.

Cheers.
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure
to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop
is reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help!

Indeed, Mike - and well done to you too, asvi.

Mart


"Mike M" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the feedback. I'm pleased, as I'm sure Mart will be, to read
you've now fixed your problems.

Cheers.
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

Formatting & partitioning the drive did it! I did it in XP & made sure
to use the FAT32 filing system instead of the NTFS. Now my ME laptop
is reading it just fine! Thanks so much for the help!