Environment: Windows XP Pro
Western Digital 250GB External Hard Drive, connected via USB.
No special drivers have been installed.

When I first hooked this up two months ago, everything appeared normal.
Recently, however, it no longer appears in the drive list (with the
"folders" option) in Windows Explorer.

The drive is working fine, but isn't listed in the "folders" panel of
Windows explorer. It IS drive "H", and if I type in H: or H:\ into the
address field, it appears and works normally. It gets its own, different
icon in the address field (i.e., not the normal drive icon). I can
also access it from the command line.

Some applications that use an Explorer-like interface exhibit the same
symptom, some see the drive immediately (I suppose it depends on how
they call the OS for the data).

This isn't a major problem, but it's a minor annoyance and a stimulant
to my academic curiosity!

Thanks for any ideas on the subject.

- Herb

"Herb" <Herb@the.big.box.store> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:17pRd.2635193$f47.469627@news.easynews.com...
you reckon?

Now. if you are, as you say "acedemic" you'll have the brains to stimulate
the problem yourself, won't you?

Herb wrote:

As with many plug-and-play devices, the computer can
get confused. In the case of removable drives that can
be attached to different computers and assigned different
drive letters by each, the Windows registry for any one
computer may no longer recognize the drive letter that
was last assigned the removable drive. This situation is
also similar if different USB drives were assigned the
same, drive letter by the computer when swapping them
around. Nuisance, yes but not much can be done about it
except to give a Volume name to [each] removable drive in
order to avoid serious confusion.

Ghostrider wrote:


Thank you Ghostrider - I'll give it a try. The system has four
additional built-in "removable drives" (for various flash cards), so
that could be the prob.

- Herb

"Herb" <Herb@the.big.box.store> wrote in message
news:HGsRd.2654085$f47.472598@news.easynews.com...
| Ghostrider wrote:
|
| >
| > Herb wrote:
| >
| >> Environment: Windows XP Pro
| >> Western Digital 250GB External Hard Drive, connected via USB.
| >> No special drivers have been installed.
| >>
| >> When I first hooked this up two months ago, everything appeared normal.
| >> Recently, however, it no longer appears in the drive list (with the
| >> "folders" option) in Windows Explorer.
| >>
| >> The drive is working fine, but isn't listed in the "folders" panel of
| >> Windows explorer. It IS drive "H", and if I type in H: or H:\ into the
| >> address field, it appears and works normally. It gets its own,
| >> different icon in the address field (i.e., not the normal drive
| >> icon). I can also access it from the command line.
| >>
| >> Some applications that use an Explorer-like interface exhibit the same
| >> symptom, some see the drive immediately (I suppose it depends on how
| >> they call the OS for the data).
| >>
| >> This isn't a major problem, but it's a minor annoyance and a stimulant
| >> to my academic curiosity!
| >>
| >> Thanks for any ideas on the subject.
| >>
| >> - Herb
| >
| >
| >
| > As with many plug-and-play devices, the computer can
| > get confused. In the case of removable drives that can
| > be attached to different computers and assigned different
| > drive letters by each, the Windows registry for any one
| > computer may no longer recognize the drive letter that
| > was last assigned the removable drive. This situation is
| > also similar if different USB drives were assigned the
| > same, drive letter by the computer when swapping them
| > around. Nuisance, yes but not much can be done about it
| > except to give a Volume name to [each] removable drive in
| > order to avoid serious confusion.
| >
|
|
| Thank you Ghostrider - I'll give it a try. The system has four
| additional built-in "removable drives" (for various flash cards), so
| that could be the prob.
|
You can reassign drive letters to the card readers - I had to do that. The
one I use got renamed "B:" and the rest are X, Y, and Z. That frees up E:
for my USB. Now it's the same on all three computers I use most.