New external HDD not showing up.
 

I just installed my new LaCie D2 external hard drive following the instructions. I plugged in the power, turned on the drive, then connected the firewire cable. The "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray showed up and clicking it shows that it recognizes the drive as it should (it actually shows "LaCie D2" and such).

So the computer seems to be recognizing the drive fine, but I'm not getting an icon to acces it in My Computer. I messed around in Device Manager and it says everything is working properly.

Any ideas as to why this plug-and-play drive isn't showing up? It came with a disk but it's just the instruction manual, and besides, the computer already read the drive properly..

Thanks for any advice guys.
-T

What OS are you running?

My first guess would be to run windows update to see if there are new drivers for it.

XP?

Does the drive have any filesystems allocated?

Check in Disk Management. (rt-click my computer->Manage->Disk Management)

<font size=1>(Don't use dynamic!)</font>

If it isn't formatted go into Disk Management and Format it in NTFS or FAT32. If it is formatted then the problem may be that it dosen't have a drive letter assigned to it thus not showing up in explorer. Find the disk in Disk Management right click it and there will be an option with drive letter in the title. I forgot the exact wording of it

My guess is also related to a Disk Management fix. I bet that the drive was assigned a drive letter that was already in use on your system. I've seen this before with external drives. Assuming you have XP, you have to right click My Computer, Manage, Disk Management. If the drive shows up there, right click on it and select Change Drive Letter and Path so something not in use.

Yes, you may need to activate the disk in disk management. This caused some head-banging when I recently setup my external harddrive.

Thanks for the replies guys. However the drive isn't even showing up under Disk Management. :confused:

The device shows in the Safely Remove list but not in Disk Management? That's odd. You scrolled all the way down in the lower-right list?

1) Open a command window. (run... cmd)
2) start diskpart (at the c: prompt enter "diskpart")
3) list disks (at the DISKPART prompt enter "list disk")

Does it show up?

Maybe he external hard drive itself is having problems? Did you try it on another PC?

I went ahead and did that Crynel and I didn't see a list of any drives at all.

-run cmd
-diskpart
-list (not listdisk)
-disk

After that it just gave me another list of possible command terms, no list of actual items.

Edit: I apologize, I should have mentioned this earlier, but when I first bought the drive, I used it on my friends Apple G5 to steal some of his files. Could this have somehow changed the way it's trying to work? I didn't do any formatting at the time, just plug-n-play. Keep in mind that Remove Hardware is still recognizing the drive and it's specifics (company, make, etc.), I just can't get an icon to access it.

list disk (note the space)

Should show something like:

Guess I'm being stubborn. Diskpart accesses the same structures as Disk Management but there's no room for gui confusion. (Just command confusion.)

Was the Mac OS X or pre? HFS+ or BSD filesystem? It should still show in Diskpart and Disk management, but as a foreign filesystem (volume) type.

I went through the commands agan, and after diskpart-->disk-->list I get Microsoft DiskPart version 5.1.3565 and then it proceeds to list the commands in alphabetical order :\

diskpart(enter)
list(space)disk(enter)

:eek:

Ah, I see ;)

Disk 0 Online 112 GB 0bytes free (this might be my seagate internal
Disk 1 Online 233 GB 233bg free (My LaCie is 250)

I've been messing around more with unplugging/restarting and such and I get the chime every time I plug it back in and it recognizes it. I also went to Lacie.com and found this. I got the updater however and it said it's up to date.. http://www.lacie.com/download/driver...MeFW800SP2.pdf

I think I might contact LaCie support in a bit, which might not be until Monday when they probably open back up. You've been more than enough help ;)

Ah, my brain hurts less.

select disk 1
list partition

Disk 1 doesn't show up in the lower right corner of the Disk Management window?

After select disk 1 and list partition I got "there are no partitions on this disk to show."

And now I see Disk 1 on the lower right hand. Maybe it wasn't showing up earlier because all the goofing around I was doing. However there's an error "do not enter sign" over the name. It says things like "Unknown," "not initialized," and "unallocated." However it is reading it's specific size (232.88gb).

When I right click it, I get the options Initialize Disk and New Partition is greyed out.

Quit disk managment
Run cmd

diskpart
select disk 1 (be very sure you get the "Disk 1 is now the selected disk" msg)
clean
exit

start disk management and set up as needed. (diskpart works but it's better as a script tool.)

LaCie drives come Mac formatted. There are step by step instructions on how to make it PC-ready on the supplied CD

Sometimes it's easier than it seems, and hopefully (probably) T3m3st is right. I'll check out the CD tomorrow.

Thanks again guys :thumbsup:
-T

Ever, can you try the diskpart clean above before resorting to LaCie utils? I'd like to know if it wipes the foreign Mac filesystems without complaint. My Mac stuff is so out of date...

I did do the diskpart clean mentioned above and it didn't help bringing the icon up :\

You went in after and created a partition, no? With Disk Management I mean?

Edit: Enjoying the a/c?

The partition option was greyed out. I fiddled around and wound up "Initializing Disk" which then gave me the option to create a partition. I did a Quick Format and the drive is up and running (without my friend's files..)

So if I partitioned it NTFS will I be able to use it back and forth with a current G5 (not sure what the OS is...)

Thanks again guys ;)
-T

And no Cyrnel, I'm not happy with the AC. 7,500 was too little and emptying the water catch tank literally every two hours isn't going to cut it ;) I'm headed back to Fry's once again and am going all out on a big bad 9,000+. I guess I could feel the 7,500, but hardly. Is 9,000 going to be a big step up?

Yep, that's normal. XP needs to init a fresh drive before it has a place to store partition info.

1) Initialize drive. (as basic, not dynamic, unless you're into s&m.)
2) Create partitions.
3) Format partitions.
4) (maybe) assign drive letters if they aren't to your liking.

As for the a/c, bummer. The btu rating could be optimistic. Going for 9000 may be better or worse. Same brand? Should be better relative accuracy. Could you extend the drain to a larger bucket? Say a 2-5gal gas can?

Biggest help when I was using the small units was to start early. The 2nd day was much better. Expensive, but only a week or two per year wasn't bad.

Weird things I've seen people do: (or so I've heard)
-Create sheet walls for smaller virtual rooms. A single roll of clear plastic goes a long way towards fugly comfort.
-Put large window units on a cart outside (on their deck?), ported in through window with dryer or hvac hose/ducting. Don't let _anyone_ on your deck.
-Start saving for house with central air.

Lol, I love the new ideas. My studio is separated into two virtual rooms but only by a banister. I had the a/c in the living room area because it could hide nicely behind a couch by a vertically-lifting window. I considered moving it into my bedroom, and I realized it was a bad idea when I found myself creating ways to get the 5-6inch diameter exhaust tubing up the wall, across the ceiling, and down to the window :lol: