USB hard drive not working in XP, working in W2000

Computer Forum Storage Devices
1

I have an old external 60GB hard drive, which worked find on my XP laptop the first time I plugged it in. After that first time, it hasn’t worked again. It does however work fine on another laptop (a Windows 2000). The safe remove utility says the USB drive is an IBM-IC35 (followed by a long number).

The disk manager recognizes the drive on both computers, but on the XP it shows up as empty and unformatted (says RAW, actually, in the properties), and healthy. On the 2000 it shows up formatted NTSF, and all the files on it are there.

This is what happened in between it working and not:

While it was plugged in, I copied some files from it to my hard drive. I downloaded the k-lite codec pack to my internal hard drive. Then downloaded the USB Safely Remove utility to my internal drive, because I couldn’t get permission from my computer to unplug the USB drive. The utility indicated that Windows Explorer had locked the drive. I think it stopped Explorer, then said the drive had stopped, so I unplugged it. Explorer does show back up in my Task Manager today.

Later, while the drive was not plugged in, I downloaded Nero 7 from disk. That’s all I did, except for browsing my online email. Then I plugged in the drive, and it didn’t work.

Since it’s the disk space I most urgently need, and I can get the data on it again from my friend who put it there in the first place, I gave up on the data and tried to re-format the drive, but the Logical Disk Manager says “format not completed successfully” or something to that effect.

If anyone has a clue what I should do, please explain it simply step by step, since I’m not very literate in tech lingo, and learning as I go. Thanx so much.

2

Welcome to HWF :slight_smile:

Have you also tried connecting the USB drive to a different USB port?

3

Thanx for the welcome.

There are two USB ports on the XP, and I tried the drive in both. I plugged other things into both ports since (DVD drive, flash drive) and both worked fine.

4

If the drive works correctly in Windows 2000, then connect it to that computer. Note the letter that the drive gets assigned (for example F: ). Now go to command prompt and enter the following command:

chkdsk X: /f
X: should be replaced with the letter of the external drive. When it asks to dismount the volume, then choose Yes (Y).

5

Could you explain to me how to get to command prompt? Also, do you mean I do this on the other computer, or on the XP?

6

It should be done at the computer where the drive is working (the Win2000 computer). You can get to the command prompt by going to Start > Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.

7

I finally got back on the other computer and did that, but it’s not asking me to dismount the volume. After checking the drive and telling me about space allocation, it stopped with another C:> and is now quite inactive in general.

Do I keep waiting for more, or do I just do safe remove and unplug it?

8

Try this:

  1. Go to My Computer
  2. Right-click on the icon of the external drive
  3. Choose Properties
  4. Go to the tab Tools
  5. Choose Disk Check
  6. Put a check mark at each option, and then perform a scan
9

Is this a long process? I started it a while ago, and it appears to be stuck on Phase 4 of checking the disk. The disk’s light is red. Not sure if it’s doing anything.

10

When there are problems with the drive, it could take quite a while because it’s repairing the errors it finds.

11

Whew, that took a while. Had a good night’s sleep and it was still going. Finally stopped, and I unplugged (safely, with permission), and plugged it into the XP. Still shows up as healthy, but unformatted and empty.