External HDD with no Drive Letter

[vince123123]

Hi guys,

I have this problem which just came up - before this everything was working correctly.

Using an external HDD on PC-A, it shows up in Disk Management but doesn't have a drive letter allocated to it. I can't select the "change drive letters" option because it is greyed out.

However, disconnecting and then connecting it on PC-B shows the HDD correctly.

Anyone knows if there is something wrong with PC-A?

 

[pegasus1010]

the immediate thing that comes to my mind - you do not have admin privileges on PC-A, thus you cannot change it.

 

[vince123123]

Nope, I have full admin privileges on both PCs.

 

[pegasus1010]

Hmm..not very sure why it work on PC-B, my guess is the OS on PC-A - something wrong.
Did it happen to another drive?
Also, searched the net, there are few options & possibilities you can look into & try -

1)
installation had marked the partition as "hidden".
load Partion Magic and unhide it

2)
Try 'Letter Assigner'
<http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig>

3)
Initialize the disk. Right click on Disk 1 (if that is the disk you want to
partition) and select Initialize. Now you can partition or assign letters.

 

[ahpan]

Did you first set up your HDD on PC B? It seems that the configuration setup / system vol information were stored on your registry and HDD.

 

[vince123123]

Yup HDD was set up on PC B initially. It was shuttled in between PC A and B for the last three months without any issue.

Did you first set up your HDD on PC B? It seems that the configuration setup / system vol information were stored on your registry and HDD.

 

[vince123123]

Nope, this is the only drive.

1. I don't have Partition Magic
2. URL doesn't work.
3. Initialise will destroy all existing data on the disk, which I wnat to avoid.

Hmm..not very sure why it work on PC-B, my guess is the OS on PC-A - something wrong.
Did it happen to another drive?
Also, searched the net, there are few options & possibilities you can look into & try -

1)
installation had marked the partition as "hidden".
load Partion Magic and unhide it

2)
Try 'Letter Assigner'
<http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig>

3)
Initialize the disk. Right click on Disk 1 (if that is the disk you want to
partition) and select Initialize. Now you can partition or assign letters.

 

[pegasus1010]

what were the changes to PC-A since the last time it worked?
Anyway the URL didn't work, I couldn't find a alternative so it's back to the drawing board. Sorry.:dunno:

 

[ahpan]

Yup HDD was set up on PC B initially. It was shuttled in between PC A and B for the last three months without any issue.

This sounds tricky.. haven't met this type of problem before.

Did you try using other USB ports on PC A? Or did you used on other USB port on PC A and the problem occured?

 

[vince123123]

Tried several USB ports, no difference. It was using the same port and the problem occured.

Just to add on, PC-B uses Norton Goback (although no Goback data exists on the HDD), PC-A does not. Trying it on PCs C & D, C works (has goback on it), and D does not work (no goback). Read online this may be the key, although I'm still trying to solve it.

This sounds tricky.. haven't met this type of problem before.

Did you try using other USB ports on PC A? Or did you used on other USB port on PC A and the problem occured?

 

[scandisk]

how about assigning letter z: to the hdd in pc-b first ? then connect to pc-a...

 

[vince123123]

assigning letter z will help meh?

 

[CYRN]

hav you tried going device manager to re-detect the device. :think:

 

[antacid]

if you're using windoze, maybe you can do a system restore on the cranky PC. sometimes my devices get screwed up and i resort to that.