[aiki]

Hallo,

1 week ago I got an external USB Harddisk (MaxtorOne Touch III: 7200RPM 500GB) and I pluged it into USB port. Windows gave automatically drive letter G: . All was fine, and I could save my data on it.

And today I restarted my PC and found that I could not find my drive in Windows explorer. There was no G: in windows explorer.
I opened Computer Management -> Disk Management, I could find there is a 500 GB Hard drive , healthy. But still I could not access it through windows explorer.
I also found in "Disk Management" that my maxtor drive was not assigned with drive letter (so now there is no G: ).

I thought that 500GB is too big for Windows, so I decided to make 4 primary partition.
I made the 1st 100GB partition and formatted it. Great, I could find in windows explorer 100GB drive (G: ) and I could access it.

Before I made the 2nd partition, I restarted my PC, and found that the 1st partition was not recognized (unknown partition; No G: again).
But Device Manager showed the disk drive and USB mass storage. (I attached 3 snapshots to this problem).

I tried to use all USB ports and tried another USB cable, but I got the same results. I even went to a friend, and tried to connect to his PC, I got the same result.

I returned to maxtor, and got a new HDD. I plugged into USB port, and I saw G: 500GB in windows explorer. Great... Then I restarted windows to see if that G: still there. And surprisingly that G: is gone. I haven't done anything to it. :(

I am using Laptop with windows XP SP2 (with latest update) and USB 2.0.

Can someone help me with this problem. Any help will be appreciated. :)

Thanks a lot

[Wolfeymole]

Hello Aiki

Welcome to TCF

Ok, Device Manager will see the drive purely as a physically attached device, nothing more.

It will not see any partitions on it whatsoever.

Re-attach the device and make 3 partitions;
1 x 100GB
2 x 200GB

Make all 3 one after the other formatting in NTFS file format.

Do not re-start until you have formatted all three.

[aiki]

Originally Posted by Wolfeymole

Hello Aiki

Welcome to TCF

Ok, Device Manager will see the drive purely as a physically attached device, nothing more.

It will not see any partitions on it whatsoever.

Re-attach the device and make 3 partitions;
1 x 100GB
2 x 200GB

Make all 3 one after the other formatting in NTFS file format.

Do not re-start until you have formatted all three.

Hallo Wolfeymole,

Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

I just made 4 partitions , and formatted it in NTFS.
All 4 partitions were fine. Windows gave each partition a drive letter.
I could see in "My Computer" that partitions and I could access it.

And then I restarted it (someday or sometimes it must be restarted or turned off and on again), then all 4 partitions are gone. I can not find it in "My Computer".

I attached some snapshot to make it clear.

Just after I formatted all partitions :


View from Windows explorer (before restarted windows):



After I restarted Windows:


Thanks :)

[Wolfeymole]

Are you deliberately naming the drives as Data 1, Data 2 etc rather then leaving them as "New Volume".

[aiki]

Originally Posted by Wolfeymole

Are you deliberately naming the drives as Data 1, Data 2 etc rather then leaving them as "New Volume".

Does it make any difference ? I mean drives label is just a name, right ? :)

Thanks :)

[Wolfeymole]

Well in theory it shouldn't matter but you know how fussy XP can be, I'd allow it to set sequential drive letters like the pic below.

[Hybr!d]

Labels shouldn't make any difference.

I would try another partitioning program, the Windows one in my experience isn't all that and does mess up.

It also cannot do some very basic stuff.

I use Partition Manager 8.0.