Hi, I just bought an external harddrive (160G, 8M, 3.5", Maxtor) and a matching case (Polaris 3.5" HDD enclosure, IDE to USB2.0), I’m running Windows XP home edition on a new ASUS laptop. The guy in 3C said putting the thing together (i.e. hard-drive into the box) is really easy, and it was, everyt…

Firstly, the driver’s only for Windows 98 cos any versions after that detect and install this sort of thing automatically. One thing that can matter is that the external hard drive’s jumper has to be set for “Master” (have a look at the back of the hard drive if you don’t know what I’m talking abou…

I remember when I installed an external hard drive for my laptop, it took me a while to figure out to get the drive letter to appear. I forget exactly how I did it, but I think I found it with some sort of system utilities program and formatted it. After formatting it, it appeared as a normal drive. …

Open the Control Panel, and go to Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management, see if you can find the drive there. It might be disabled or something. Err… I see you’re running XP Home Edition. I have Professional, so it might be a little different.

Thanks guys, I followed Andre’s instructions (seems to be the same set-up in home & professional editions), but the drive was not listed under “Disk Management” in the Admin Tools. I then went into Systems Tools as suggested by aldibarbac and did find the drive listed in the Device Manager. I click…

Irishstu, would that be on the case (nothing there) or on the HD itself? I’ll just open it up again, don’t worry, thanks!!

O.k., I opened the thing up again and changed the jumer position to “DS (Master)” (it was in “CS Enabled”, the other options are “Cap Limit” and two more settings (one with only one pin) that are not labelled). Hooked it up again and - nothing. Although the drive started spinning a little by the s…

Is the external hard drive’s power cord plugged in?

[quote=“Xpet”]the drive was not listed under “Disk Management” in the Admin Tools. I then went into Systems Tools as suggested by aldibarbac and did find the drive listed in the Device Manager. [/quote] Strange… even if it’s not formatted, it should show up in the Disk Management section as “unfor…

… how do I do that?[/quote] Uh, sorry, now I’ve noticed that you were talking about a laptop… so forget about that suggestion. Anyway, are you sure it doesn’t show up under “Disk Management”? Can you post a screenshot? When you open the “Properties” window in the Device Manager, there’s a tab c…