Why is my portable hard drive not working?

portable hard drive partitioning windows 7 image

Pillar of

I've tried to use several portable hard drives with my desktop computer running Windows XP and they have recently not been showing up in my drive menu. USB drives work fine and the portable hard drives I have been using are functioning on my laptop, but my desktop computer will not display any icon in my menu.

Any help would be appreciated!
I forgot to add, the USB drives that work fine are the thumb drives, only larger hard drives are not functioning, but I am using the same USB ports for both.

Answer
Yeah, Ive had this happen before. Your computer probably just didn't assign it a drive letter. Try this...

1. Connect external and turn it on just like you normally would.

2. Right click on "My Computer" and click "Manage".

3. In the left side under "Storage", select "Disk Management".
(Now it should be displaying a list of all your drives and there partitions.)

4. Look to see if you can find one that does not have a drive letter beside it. Tip: Look for the one with the capacity that matches your external.

5. Once you've found it right click on the drive and select "Change Drive Letters and Paths...".

6. Then click "add".

7. Then with "Assign the following drive letter" selected, chose the letter you want to assign to the drive. Now just close every thing by clicking OK.

Now it should be useable drive listed in My Computer.

Hopefully this helps.

How can I connect my two laptops, what cable do I need to buy? What else will I be needing?

Fordis

How can I connect my two laptops, what cable do I need to buy? What else will I be needing?

1. Lenovo R60, bought year 2005, currently running Windows 7
2. Asus F5R, bought year 2006, currently running Vista Basic

If connected, can I manipulate the other's hard-drive, like formatting it, partitioning it, installing OS there, etc, etc..?

Also, can I share the internet connection running there on the other laptop while the two are interconnected (USB Broadband, wifi)?

Answer
Not exactly sure how you currently have them connected. If you want to connect them so that you can use the other computer remotely... like run a program... burn a disk... move the mouse around... then I can help ya out..

You can install a free program called Team Viewer. There are Two versions... The MAIN which requires a full install... and The CLIENT... which is just a portable .exe (no install).

To Use Program:
On the computer you wish to control remotely... the run the client and it will display a USER IS and Password... just enter those numbers on the MAIN computer after running Team Viewer and a Remote Link is created allowing you to control the other computer. Very simple and easy.

You can install the MAIN full install program onto both programs if you want...

I've used this program to connect to computers in other countries (I"m a PC Tech)..

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx?pid=google.tv.s.us&gclid=CP79v_r22rgCFQHZQgod0CYAqg

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If you just want to connect two side by side computers without using Internet... then you will need to get a CROSSOVER Ethernet cable... just plug it in and each computer will appear as a storage drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=crossover+ethernet+cable&N=-1&isNodeId=1

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