Dell Inspiron 9300: Ext. hard drive not recognized HELP!

I am having a problem with my NEW Western Digital 250 GB Caviar Hard
Drive (WD2500JB) not being recognized by my computer (Dell Inspiron
9300). It is in a metal gear box enclosure. We set it up to be cable
select, formated it for NTFS and it ran fine in my friend's laptop
(inspiron different model). We both have windows XP SP2.

I plut it into mine and it shows up under device manager (no apparant
errors or anything), but it does not show up under My Computer, and I
cannot access it. Why is it working on his and not mine? I had a 200 GB
maxtor drive in the same enclosure running fine in this laptop for a
long time. Also I can use my friend's Iomega 200GB drive fine as well.

Here is my original topic:
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthr...39845&t=391722

HELP!

I formatted it in this computer with NTFS, uninstalled the hard drive,
usb mass drive and all other usb adapters, NOT working still after
restarting. It not showing up in my computer and I can't work with it.
Although it works fine with my friend's desktop (diff brand), and my
friend's laptop Dell. Not sure of his Dell model.

On 9 Dec 2006 14:35:49 -0800, wrote:

>I am having a problem with my NEW Western Digital 250 GB Caviar Hard
>Drive (WD2500JB) not being recognized by my computer (Dell Inspiron
>9300). It is in a metal gear box enclosure. We set it up to be cable
>select, formated it for NTFS and it ran fine in my friend's laptop
>(inspiron different model). We both have windows XP SP2.
>
>I plut it into mine and it shows up under device manager (no apparant
>errors or anything), but it does not show up under My Computer, and I
>cannot access it. Why is it working on his and not mine? I had a 200 GB
>maxtor drive in the same enclosure running fine in this laptop for a
>long time. Also I can use my friend's Iomega 200GB drive fine as well.
>
>Here is my original topic:
>http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthr...39845&t=391722
>
>HELP!
>
>I formatted it in this computer with NTFS, uninstalled the hard drive,
>usb mass drive and all other usb adapters, NOT working still after
>restarting. It not showing up in my computer and I can't work with it.
>Although it works fine with my friend's desktop (diff brand), and my
>friend's laptop Dell. Not sure of his Dell model.

When you configured it in your friends computer you assigned it a
drive letter. That drive letter is in use on your computer already
perhaps? If so, you need to use the Administrative Tools 'Disk
Management' (or is that Disk Manager?) program and assign it a new
drive letter.

"PeterD" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On 9 Dec 2006 14:35:49 -0800, wrote:
>
>>I am having a problem with my NEW Western Digital 250 GB Caviar Hard
>>Drive (WD2500JB) not being recognized by my computer (Dell Inspiron
>>9300). It is in a metal gear box enclosure. We set it up to be cable
>>select, formated it for NTFS and it ran fine in my friend's laptop
>>(inspiron different model). We both have windows XP SP2.
>>
>>I plut it into mine and it shows up under device manager (no apparant
>>errors or anything), but it does not show up under My Computer, and I
>>cannot access it. Why is it working on his and not mine? I had a 200 GB
>>maxtor drive in the same enclosure running fine in this laptop for a
>>long time. Also I can use my friend's Iomega 200GB drive fine as well.
>>
>>Here is my original topic:
>>http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthr...39845&t=391722
>>
>>HELP!
>>
>>I formatted it in this computer with NTFS, uninstalled the hard drive,
>>usb mass drive and all other usb adapters, NOT working still after
>>restarting. It not showing up in my computer and I can't work with it.
>>Although it works fine with my friend's desktop (diff brand), and my
>>friend's laptop Dell. Not sure of his Dell model.
>
> When you configured it in your friends computer you assigned it a
> drive letter. That drive letter is in use on your computer already
> perhaps? If so, you need to use the Administrative Tools 'Disk
> Management' (or is that Disk Manager?) program and assign it a new
> drive letter.
>

Exactly what I was going to say. Stupid decisions on XP's part.

Tom

I fixed it by assigning a drive letter like u guys said. LoL it was
never assigned one. kthx bye!

> When you configured it in your friends computer you assigned it a
> drive letter. That drive letter is in use on your computer already
> perhaps? If so, you need to use the Administrative Tools 'Disk
> Management' (or is that Disk Manager?) program and assign it a new
> drive letter.

I had a similar problem trying to recover data from a friends' drive -
but disk management didn't give me an option to change the drive letter.

Data recovery software could access it happily though ?!?