Hey everyone,

I just uprgaded my OS to Win7 from Xp. Did a clean upgrade formatting the drive before the install. I had backed up all my old data on my Seagate 1.5tb Desktop External. Anyway the install went fine, I updated all the drivers (now the bios too) but when I plug the external drive in it does not install correctly. I have tried connecting it on 3 others computers now, two of which were running Win7, and one running XP. It was recognised and installs fine on all of them! But then when I plug it into this desktop (specs below) it just shows up as an "Unspecified" device in Devices and Printers but will not show up as a drive in My Computer, Disk Manager, or anywhere else. I am very much at a loss as to why this is happening! I can't find any drivers for the Seagate drive online because it is supposed to work as Plug&Play, as it does on all the other computers. I have tried every usb port on my case to no avail, and other non-powered USB drives are working fine as are all my USB sticks. I'm running the following;

- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Rev 1.0 Mboard (F9 Bios)
- Nvida 8800GTS 320mb vcard
- 2gb Ram
- Intel Core2duo E6750 2.66ghz
- 500bg Seagate internal drive (working fine)
- 1.5tb Seagate Desktop Exnl Drive (problem)

Does anyone have ANY idea what might be causing this/how I can fix it!?? I have been trying for what seems like days now haha.

Cheers!
Tk

plug it into the other computer, share the drive, copy contents via the network
might be slow but at least you get your data

then format it in control panel -> disk utility and see if it starts working under win7

Ridiculous External Drive Problem! I can haz halp, plox?!

Fixed your typo for you.

Also, are you using the default USB cable? Sounds like a power issue (if the drive is powered off the USB cable). External drives usually come with very small cables - sometimes cable length is enough resistance to get the available power below what the drive requires, even from a USB 2.0 port.

What's your PSU?

.. a 1.5TB external drive will have it's own power supply

.. a 1.5TB external drive will have it's own power supply

Well, this page says 'self-powered': http://www.everythingusb.com/seagate-freeagent-xtreme-1.5tb-external-hard-drive-15790.html

Maybe it has little legs and can pedal it's own generator?

EDIT: in below pics on that page it shows DC input. Silly specs :-P

try turning off the computer at the wall for 30 mins then reboot.
theres an old usb bug that sometimes causes that problem.

"self powered*"


*with the included dc power block


its ok Pinky

What versions of Windows were they that you tested it on, and what did you install on?

You had XP? (home or Pro)

You tested on XP (home or Pro)

You tested on Win7 - which version?

You upgraded to Win7 - which version?

I only ask this because I had a similar problem when I formated (under XP Pro) an external HD and put heaps of crap on it and then when I reinstalled XP with Home - it wouldn't detect it because the file format was only supported by XP Pro - not XP Home. You may have created the disk in XP Pro that can't be read by Win7 Premium (the equivelent of XP Home)

I'm probably way off the mark (I know fuck all about this stuff) but that's my story.

Thanks for reading.



last edited by mission at 16:11:40 06/Nov/09

Yea it has its own ps, its not the freeagent model but the standard desktop one. Anyway, I'm sure it must be software related, because it was working 2 days ago with the EXACT same hardware on XP, and as I said the same usb cable works fine on other pc's. I just managed to get the most important stuff off the drive via the network, but 1.5gb took 35 mins haha. I hate to think what will happen when i try to copy 200gb of music.... I will try switching it off at the wall for 30 mins, it hasn't had that much downtime for a while lol so we'll see what happens! Thanks for all the suggestions, let me know if you have any others.

Tk

1. Disconnect it from the computer
2. Open Device Manager
3. Enable "Show Hidden Devices"
4. If it's still listed, uninstall it
5. Go to Devices and Printers
5. Right-click the name of your computer, and then click "Device installation settings"
6. Click "Yes, do this automatically (recommended)", and then click Save changes
7. Reconnect the drive