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External hard drive? (1 Viewer)

Claymore

Well-known member
Hi,
I have just bought a external 500gb harddrive that plugs into usb2, i have installed the driver and when i go to device manager it recognises it.
How do i copy photo's etc off my laptop onto the usb harddrive? I right clicked on a image and looked for copy to, and the usb hard drive wasn't on the list? any tips to get me started? I'm using Vista Home Premium.
Cheers
Brian
 
When you plug it in it should appear as a new drive in My Computer.

You can then use it like any other drive, simply drag and drop the default action to another drive is copy so you will be fine.
 
When you plug it in it should appear as a new drive in My Computer.

You can then use it like any other drive, simply drag and drop the default action to another drive is copy so you will be fine.
Hi,
When i plug it in nothing happens, only way i can find it is by going to Device manager and its listed in the USB section as a mass storage device. I tried saving to drives but they show up as Local disc C, Memory stick D, SD/MMC E and DVD/RW F. No sign of the external drive (if i double click on the USB drive it says mass storage device is working)
I'm not very good with these computer jobbies as you may guess LoL
Any idea's?
Cheers
Brian
 
Had a similar problem with a USB stick the first time I used it in Visa loaded Laptop. Had to format it to get it to work then reformat to work on my old ibook but had no problem next time I used it in the laptop. Visa can be strange!
 
Hi
I have had the same problem and found that my external drive wasn't compatible with windows Vista only windows XP etc. Double check that it will work on Vista.
 
Maybe you ought to consider a second internal drive if your computer has a slot for one? I've owned 2 external hard drives for my Dell desktop running XP & had serious troubles with both of them (crashes, failure to mount). Both were well known brands bought from a local big box retailer. After returning one of the drives for refund, & junking the other (I accidentally wrecked it before getting it back to the store), I bought an internal hard drive which has worked flawlessly for many months now.
 
If your using XP go to Start > Run and enter in diskmgmt.msc

This gives you access to the Disk Management program in XP. You should see your external drive displayed. By right-clicking over the drive you should see options for initialising, partitioning and formatting. Formatting the drive will remove all existing data.
 
What is the make and model of the drive? As H14NHA stated, it may be a driver issue.

Am I correct from your listing that you have some sort of USB memory stick, and a slot reader installed as well as the external usb drive? If you have any other external USB drives/memory sticks plugged in, have you tried unplugging them first, and only connecting the external drive, just to see what happens?

Regards,

Gary
 
Could be a driver but also the drive will not show up in My Computer (XP) unless it has been formatted. In XP (I know you're using Vista but I'm not familiar with that OS; I assume Vista will not be much different from XP in this regard), right click on My Computer and select Manage. In the Computer Mangement app that opens up you will see an entry for Disk Management under Storge in the tree to the left. Click on that and you will see all of the drives in your computer including removable external hard drives. If you see the external drive then you know Vista recognizes it and has a driver for it. Check to see if it is formatted. If not, format it by right clicking on the drive and choosing format. You may have to create a partition before you format. Hope this helps.
 
If your using XP go to Start > Run and enter in diskmgmt.msc

This gives you access to the Disk Management program in XP. You should see your external drive displayed. By right-clicking over the drive you should see options for initialising, partitioning and formatting. Formatting the drive will remove all existing data.
Hi,
Thanks everyone for the info, I followed these instructions and success!!!!!!!!!!! although it won't work on the Vista Laptop its fine on my desk top PC. I will now upgrade this to max spec and keep the laptop for internet etc.
Thanks again for all your help
Cheers
Brian
 
Good to hear Brian.
My son has Vista on his laptop. I'll fiddle around with it this eveneing and see what the procedure would be for Vista. Although once the drive is partitioned and formatted, it should now be recognizable in Vista as long as there is a driver for it. Probably just a generic USB disk drivers should it should work. But it is Microsoft to all bets are off.
 
Brian, what is the make and model of both your external hard drive and laptop?
I have a Maxtor 160GB External drive that has built-in software, therefore when connected to my Compaq laptop (with Vista operating system) it is recognised instantly.

Roger
 
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