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| Thread ID: 82855 | 2007-09-10 09:32:00 | WinME refusing to assign a drive letter to an external USB drive | Jen (38) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 589959 | 2007-09-11 06:16:00 | It has a separate power supply. | Jen (38) | ||
| 589960 | 2007-09-11 19:37:00 | Most ideas have already been covered here, but just one further thing to look at. If you go to device manager when the the harddrive is plugged in, are there any conflicts in regards to memory/IRQs/resources etc. Have a look in device manager under properties of the usb devices. Good luck with this one, most MS KB's have been wiped of ME help now, but even when supported ME was still a PITA |
lysdexic (12796) | ||
| 589961 | 2007-09-11 19:51:00 | The drive is FAT32 and it worked fine on this same machine with WinME prior to the reformat. I didn't think to try using fdisk but as the registry has an entry for it surely it has been recognised? I think another visit is required to try out these additional suggestions. :) I was going to boot up the machine using a Linux LiveCD to see if it found the drive OK, but decided the problem looked more like Windows software than actual hardware faults. It is a friends PC and they are not worried if it requires another reformat, but I would hate to do that only to find the problem reoccurs. With WinME there should be a config.sys file inthe root of C:\ Is there a lastdrive= entry? If so make it read lastdrive=z Not certain. It has been a while now. |
Sweep (90) | ||
| 589962 | 2007-09-11 19:52:00 | Have you tried the drive on another PC since this ME not seeing it problem? Cause I use them all the time on all sorts of O/Ss. Only Win98 requires a driver. ME, 2000 and XP don't. Whenever I have had this sort of problem its been because the drive isn't working properly for whatever reason. I use a USB to IDE/SATA adapter rather than a drive in an enclosure. I've had - faulty power board it was plugged into - which killed the adapter. Drive lived. -Bent pins on drive attached. -cables not quite attached tightly. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 589963 | 2007-09-14 05:59:00 | Have you tried the drive on another PC since this ME not seeing it problem?The drive works perfectly fine still on another machine (running XP). They still haven't tried removing the USB devices using the Hardware Device Manager, but hopefully they will try this tonight. Failing that it is getting reformatted this weekend. :rolleyes: |
Jen (38) | ||
| 589964 | 2007-09-16 06:11:00 | Update time. I've just finished trying all the following without success: - Removed all the USB device entries under the Hardware Manager and rebooted - Repaired the registry - Repaired Windows ME - Looked at the BIOS for any possible conflict/setting that related to USB or large storage - Removed the new NIC - Booted up Ubuntu and it was unable to mount the device due to an unknown partition type However, the same drive still works perfectly fine on a different computer running XP and the WinME machine does recognise the device by name, but still no drive letter allocated. The current plan is to backup the external drive using the XP PC and then return the PC to the shop that did the initial reinstall of ME and the NIC to see what they can come up with. Options after that will be to install a removable 3.5" drive caddy and put the external hard drive into that (not portable, but backups can be safely stored), put a firewire card in and use that for connecting the drive, or put WinXP on that machine. My thinking is that the issue lies deep in the hardware (eg BIOS) seeing as Linux couldn't mount the volume either so I am guessing WinXP on that machine will not help. Thanks everyone who contributed suggestions. :) |
Jen (38) | ||
| 589965 | 2007-09-16 06:29:00 | Very Simple answer - It ME - Nuf said :lol: | wainuitech (129) | ||
| 589966 | 2007-09-16 06:34:00 | Very Simple answer - It ME - Nuf said :lol:Ah, but Linux also snubbed the drive. :p | Jen (38) | ||
| 589967 | 2007-09-16 07:15:00 | Whether it helps in this situation or not (apparently its FAT32 formatted), I'd grab NTFS Reader (www.diskinternals.com) (freeware) for the WinME system anyways. | sal (67) | ||
| 589968 | 2007-09-16 20:15:00 | Ahhh so I’m not the only one to experience this phenomena. :D I had exactly the same problem using just an ordinary IDE – USB cable on a ordinary HDD. In desperation I changed the Jumper on the HDD to "Cable Select" and away we went. A couple of months later it went crook again so I changed the Jumper back to "Master" and away we went again and we’re still going good. I can’t explain this, but suspect a back-up copy of the registry being installed by Windows, for whatever reason, may have caused the glitch once we were up and running. The HDD is only used for back-up purposes and is not connected full time. Anyway, may be worth a try Jen. |
B.M. (505) | ||
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