replaced hard drive on pc. installed software for the maxtor II backup drive but it is not recognizing the drive? mom has no other backups except on this drive. she is running vista home and not sure if that is the issue
Already Tried: installed with drive connected, saw that I needed to have drive disconnected so I uninstalled, removed the drive, installed, connected the drive, it was then recognized by pc and installed the drivers but it is STILL not found when I click on the Maxtor icon... all i want to do at this point is get the data files off drive for my mother
Hi there and welcomehow is the drive connecting to the computer? Via a network cable or USB?
it is a cable with the usual usb flat connection on one end and a more square connection on the other end but it has what appears to be the usb 'symbol' on it so i am assuming it is a usb cable ? hardware is not my specialty
Correct, this is USBCan you disconnect it from the computerDownload and run this filehttp://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9802032Then restart your computer and connect the hard disk.If it is not detected, please let me know.
Experience: Repairing computers for over 15 years
okay, downloaded/ran the software as suggested. nothing has changed. I can click on the 'safely remove drives' icon and it see the drive correctly as a Maxtor drive, it see the drive as working correctly. However, when i explore in windows, i do not see the drive.. just for yucks... the drive is in port 4 hub 8. again, just trying to see if i can restore the data files or copy over her documents/photos... as I jokingly say, "thank you for playing, please try again!" I appreciate your help
ok, connect it directly to the computer, not via the hubGo to Start, right click computer and select manageGo to Disk ManagementLook for it there, right click it and select Assign Drive LetterOnce you assign a drive letter, it should then appear in Windows explorerLet me know if you still have problems please.
I plugged it in the back of the computer instead of the front and nothing is showing up... drives F - I are there and i can right click and have the option to change the letter. On top there are three listings. the first is blank and does not give me the option to assign the letter. The next is the OS C drive and the third is the D drive partition... ?? good grief!
Next thought??
where are you seeing Drive F?
in disk management, it is on the 'lower' list with no media in it
ok, and it says F drive?If it does, then go to start, computer and in the new window, click on computer and look for F drive there please
yup, has always been there but at this point, have not got a clue which one of the 8 usb ports is actually the F drive
ok, F drive is the hard disk.It is not related to the port.This is the disk with the information on it. You can click on the F Drive and copy any data from it that you wish
Nope... system see it as having no media attached to it.... while waiting, I took a small flash drive and plugged it into every port in front and it always came up as J. plugged it to a back port and it came up J. switched the maxtor drive and the flash drive and still only recognized the flash drive in port J and nothing for the maxtor drive. Just for yucks, I double clicked on drives F, G, H and I and they all said nothing was plugged into the ports... ??? Driving me freakin' crazy!
next thought to try! Thank you for your patience!
ok, disconnect the maxtorDoes F disappear?
Nope. F stays there. I remove the flash drive, the J drive does go away
Relist: Other.replaced computer hard drive. now trying to get the data off of the maxtor II backup drive. the maxtor software is not recognizing it. when I go to disconnect the maxtor drive, it sees the maxtor drive and allows me to disconnect it. However, when I go to view the files on the drive it is not 'seen'... we have tried a few things. determined it is not a port issue as a flash drive in any of the ports is recognized immediately. just want to get to the data files if possible
Is the drive showing up in my computer with a drive letter ?
no, i pop a flash drive into ANY of the ports and it comes up as J. I put the maxtor drive into a drive the flash drive came out of and the system does not seem to recognize it. It is 'found' when I go to safely disconnect it but no where else am I seeing it...
also, we tried to rename the drive letter but it was not found to even rename. Letters F - I always show but they say nothing is connected to them when I double click on them...
so how many drives do you actually have and how many are showing up with drive letters ?
have you rebooted the computer ?
remove any removable drives ie external hard drives or external cd's or flash drives
reboot the computer
plug the maxtor in
it should go through a found new hardware routine and show up in my computer
Do you then have one that says maxtor in the my computer
if you just double click on it what does it say exactly word for word
pulled out the maxtor drive, rebooted and plugged it back in, there was a moving icon which seemed to indicate something was happening... again, it is recognized by name in the 'remove safely' but when I go to explore, there is nothing there....
The computer has 8 usb ports. 4 in front and 4 in back. Same thing with all the ports, not recognized when I go to explore drives but it is when I click on icon to safely remove the drive . USB Mass storage device and under that is Maxtor One Touch II USB device with an icon of a white page with a cog on it...
getting REALLY frustrated with why it is recognized to remove it but I cannot actually read it! I appreciate your help
check the drive itself. some of them have an option for 2 usb cables or have a cable with 2 ends for the pc side. That is because some computers dont supply enough power through only one of them. If it has that option plug both of them in.
Otherwise it has nothing to do with which port you have it in.
please tell me everything that you have hooked up to the computer and send me a screenshot of everything that shows up under my computer
Screen shot instructions
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click start menu / all programs / accesories / paint
click edit / paste
click file / save as
save as a jpg file in my pictures
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click browse.
click browse in the 2nd window that pops up
browse to the file you just saved in my pictures
click ok
click insert back in the first window
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thanks please do it again though and have the highlight on computer and select view as icons so that i can see if one of those drives says maxtor
ok none of those appear to be the maxtor
we have to go back to the drive management screen and see what all of them are.
can you get me a screen shot of that ?
ok i see the problem though not a real good solution
you can remove all of the drives on the bottom 1 through 6 that have nothing in them they are just confusing
the drive that you have highlighted in the top section is the maxtor
the problem is that it is showing no file system. You see where the c drive shows ntfs it should show that for the maxtor as well. Instead it is blank.
That means that as far as the vista can tell its a blank drive that has never been formatted.
That may mean the vista is just reading it wrong ie a bad driver or it may mean the drive itself got trashed.
Have you got the original computer that it came from ? The easiest way to test it is to see if it will work on that.
this is the orginal computer but the original hard drive crashed. i am in the (now) achingly slow process of getting the new C drive to look like the one it replaced. Sounding like I am hosed... I have windows 7 on my laptop so i doubt it would be worth installing the software on my laptop?? willing to try if you think it will give you another answer....
try attaching the drive to the win 7 machine.
If the data is not important to you than you can just re partition and reformat the drive. If the data is importan than lets see if we can read it someplace else. If we can be sure that it actually exists than we can work on getting it on the vista. But if there is nothing there we can work at it forever and not get anywhere.
plugged into the win 7 computer. in computer mgmt It is saying it is unknow and not initialized. when i click to initialize, a pop up appears and says "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it and then asks what partition style... ???
ok i am real sorry to say that it sounds like the drive itself lost its formatting. Perhaps whatever crashed your other drive did this one at the same time.
Now it is a matter of how important it was to you. There are some third party companies that can read drives like that. They charge something like 200 for the drive but generally wont charge if they cant read it.
There is also some unformat utility software that might be able to recover it but its more difficult on a usb drive like that and you run the risk of trashing what might still be read by a professional with specialized equiptment
If you put drive recovery into google you will find a host of companies that can do it.
If the data was not that important to you just repartition and reformat the drive and you can use it again but you wont have any of the old data.
If you
it is not worth THAT much... thanks for confirming what I was beginning to suspect. Oh well, it was worth a try.... wah
Im sorry. I wish i could have given you a more succesful conclusion. But that spot for file system shows what the file system is. it can be ntfs it can be fat or fat32 but if its blank theres no file system. Like a house with no floors inside. Two different computers came up the same way even with different operating systems, and the win 7 at least shouldnt even need a driver for that drive.
At least you know for sure now.
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Thank you