topic Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP in PCs & Accessories

Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:46:14 GMT

Hi, Looking for advice pleeeeease,
I recently bought a WD Passport 2.5" hdd (250GB). Upon plugging it in to the usb socket, Win XP does it's thing and installs the device. I then get the message that it can be used. I went to 'My Computer' but the drive is not shown. Any clues? I've emailed WD and looked on their web pages but there seems to be no apparent solution.

Also on another topic, when booting into XP, if I wnat the battery/mains power icon to show in the systray, I have to log off and log on as me throught the welcome screen. On initial boot up though, it seems to bypass the welcome screen.

I'd be grateful if anyone has a solution to either of my probs.

Thanx

Nick

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

kee-lo_ — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:59:42 GMT

Hi Nick,

Does the WD have a power supply?
The only reason I ask is because if it's bus powered it might be too powerful for the notebook.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

MattWilson — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:38:45 GMT

Some USB hard drives work better on 10V so you use one of these:

It has 10V input from 2 USB connectors that are attached.

You can get it here.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:51:58 GMT

Hi, no it doesn't have its own power supply. That was part of the reason I bought it as it seemed more convenient to carry around without another adapter.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:53:47 GMT

I understand that WD sells those cables too. I would have thought though that as the laptop is under 2 years old, it would have had enough power to allow the HDD to work. The blue power light comes on on the HDD when plugged in. It just isn't shown in 'My Computer'.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

Thalamus. — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:55:28 GMT

Hi Nick,

The western Digital HDD worked ok on a older PCG-K series without any extra leads etc, just simply plug and play, are you able to test on another PC..

There is a KB article on the WD site How do I install a WD Passport external USB hard drive in Windows

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:00:37 GMT

Yeah, I've tried it on my Dell Dimension and exactly the same thing happened. Hope its not the HDD as I bought it in the US. Have read though that WIN XP can't see anything over 137GB. IS this correct and if so how do you overcome it when you can't access the HDD to start with?

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

MattWilson — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:04:05 GMT

Well i have a 200GB external drive and XP works fine with it.

Its a myth i think.

I think it could be the hard disc.

Do you have a vista PC or a Linux Live CD to test it with?

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:59:00 GMT

No I don't have a Vista pc that I can test it with.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:01:16 GMT

Does anyone have ideas about the other part of my initial post.
When booting up into XP, if I want to have the battery/mains indicator on the systray, I have to log off then choose me from the welcome screen. I go straight into XP on the initial boot.

Thanks again for your replies

Nick

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

MattWilson — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:21:29 GMT

Does anyone have ideas about the other part of my initial post.
When booting up into XP, if I want to have the battery/mains indicator on the systray, I have to log off then choose me from the welcome screen. I go straight into XP on the initial boot. 

Thanks again for your replies

Nick

You can change the login method so that you have a Network style login window and then it should load everytime.

I cannot think of any reason why it should do that though.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:38:57 GMT

I tried to overcome the problem by setting the computer to boot to the welcome screen then choosing the user (me as administrator) and I still had to log off and then re choose me. Very strange.

With regards to the HDD. Do you think that maybe because I bought the drive in the US and I'm running it in the UK, the different voltage may cause the problem. I did check the packaging when I bought it though and found no warning of any operating differences. Its extremely annoying.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

MattWilson — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:16:05 GMT

No. The USB voltages are constant at 5V everywhere.

You only need to worry if you bought an externally powered drive.

Really can't think whats wrong with it other than its screwed.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:31:01 GMT

OK. Going to the States today so I'll take it back to the place I bought it and get another one. Fingers crossed.

Thanks again for everyones advice

Nick

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

Thalamus. — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:36:42 GMT

You're welcome..

Hope you enjoy your time in the US..

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

seefour05 — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 08:11:42 GMT

Didn't go in the end so still stuck with a dodgy hdd. With regards to my other part of the original post about icons not showing in the systray at startup, if you go into Administrative tools and then services, disable universal plug n play and sspd it suddenly works. One less thing to worry about.

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

kee-lo_ — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:35:21 GMT

Excellent, thanks for the tip too

Re: Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

davemee — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:56:28 GMT

C4ohfive:
One thing that's caused similar issues for me in the past: I use a lot of drive letter mappings for network drives on my machine, some of which are dynamically allocated. Your external drive will also have a preference for a particular drive letter. If this drive letter is in use, you *won't* see your drive when you inert it.

I'd suggest starting up controlpanel->admintools->computermanager then click storage->disks - can you see your drive there? If so, you can right-click it (in the top center panel) and change the drive letter it gets through "Change drive letter and path". Sorry, I'm working thru this on vista, don't have an xp box to hand bu it's pretty much the same.