...I'm not going to go into detail yet unless I find someone that had the same problems that I am having. And if you have had these problems, them you will know exactly what I am getting at.

Short version: hooked up new external HD yesterday. As usual XP failed to recognize new hardware, so I reformatted drive to NTFS (through disk management menu...only place to actually "see" drive). Now drive shows up, but when I transfer files to the new drive, every once in a while (random) I get an error that essentially tells me that the drive can no longer be "located".

I've updated drivers and still getting errors. What now?

 

How are you hooking it up? (Include entire path from the drive to the motherboard).

What kind of machine are you using?

I don't think this is a software issue for some reason...

 

Hard Drive is external and is connect straight to the USB on the back of the computer. Computer is Dell Deminsion 4600 with XP.

I mention XP being a problem because my machine will not recognize the 1 Gig flash drive I bought her last christmas. I plug it in and nothing happens, not even the "new hardware" message. Can only get to it through disk management. Flash Drive works fine on 2000 and NT (wife took it to work to check) but will not work on her work XP machine either.

That being said, it is NOT a problem with the USB ports because they work fine with all the other cables (camera, Ipod, etc) plugged up to them.

 

Make sure it's not a drive letter issue. Assign the device a middle letter such as M: via disk management and see what happens.

A lot of the machines here have mapped drives or external devices that don't want to give up their drive letter. So, when people plug new USB devices in, it won't show up. It's a possibility.

If that's not it, I kinda wonder if your Plug N Play settings are a little fubar'd...

 

Now that I have everything moved to external hard drive I don't seem to be having any problems with it. I have a suspicion that I was trying to move too many files at one time and the drive could not keep up, so it would just give up.

Just bought an Ipod Nano and the 'puter "sees" it just fine. I still don't know what the issue with the jump drive is. Was going to reformat it to NTFS too but I don't get that option for it. It just gives me the option of FAT & FAT32.

 

Uhh... ??

First you say your computer couldn't "see" it, now you're saying you were transferring too many files at once? How can you transfer files if you can't see it?

XP won't let you partition a flash drive to NTFS. FAT or FAT32 only.

 

Another thing... did you buy an enclosure and stick the drive in it? If so, your jumper settings have to be at Master otherwise it won't work.

 

check your cables...

also, if the power plug that plugs into the enclose has 4 pins on it, make sure you have a solid connection.

i have an external seagate that uses an external power supply that feeds 4 pins to the enclosure. 2 are 12v and the other 2 are 5v, IIRC.

one day, it just refused to work. finally, i saw that the power plug was just dangling there. the power light was on, so i assumed it was a good connection. but after plugging it solidly, it worked fine afterwards...

 

Sorry, I was talking about too many things at one time. What the computer won't "see" is the jump drive.
The problem with "moving too many files at once" had to do with the new external Hard Drive.
External HD seems to work fine now...not sure why since I never got around to doing anything about it yet. It is the jump drive that the computer still won't recognize. I can only get to it through Disk Management.

 

Ok, try reformatting the jump drive through Disk Management. If that doesn't work, change the drive letter to something unused, like M: .

 

Have done both...several times. Still Nada. I'll just give up for now. I initially bought it for my wife to use, but she never uses it (it works on her work machine-Win 2000). I plan on getting a Mac in the next couple of months, so I will just waite until then.

Thanks anyway guys!