thegriz
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Vista Will Not Recognize/Install Drive
I have owned this Fantom external drive for 2 yrs give or take. It has always been hooked up to a Windows XP Pro machine(several different ones). I have recently purchased a Acer Aspire L100 sporting an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core model 5600 2.8 Gig Processor & 2 GB of DDR2 memory. It has Vista Home Premium installed as the OS(God, I hate this OD more each day). Vista will not recognize/install this drive. I have searched Microsoft's knowledgebase & the net for solutions to this dilemma to no avail. Fantom Drives has no help for me. I even called their support center. All I got from them was that I should make sure that my vista drivers were up to date. Can you help me with this at all? I really don't want to harvest the drive from this case & install it in another as I can't afford the outlay for the new case. Also, there are pleny of cases out there that claim to be Vista compatible but I don't trust their claims!
Radar07
Try plugging it in while logged on as administrator. Does the USB driver attempt to load? Is it recognised as a mass storage device? Have you looked in Disk Manager to see if it has a conflicting drive letter assignment?
ASKER
Hi Radar07! Logging on as Administrator doesn't help. No driver tries to load. It is not recognized as Any type of device. Yes, I have tried looking in disk manager & it shows no conflicts of any kind. The only response I get when I plug it in is the chime sound that the computer makes when you plug in a usb device.
"... I have tried looking in disk manager & it shows no conflicts of any kind. " ==> What does it show for the options when you right-click on the drive? A conflicting drive letter won't show ... it will simply be suppressed. But if you get an option to assign/change the drive letter, that may be all you have to do.
ASKER
Disk Manager does not show this drive at all.
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I'm still getting used to Vista but I thought that if you hear the USB connecting sound then it will do one of the following:
recognise the device and load it, or
look for and load a driver automatically, or
fail and ask for a driver.
If it makes the sound but isn't producing requests for drivers then it would seem to me to be recognised, but where is it?
Is anything added to the list of USB devices when plugged in? I'm thinking particularly of double-clicking the USB icon in the System Tray.
Are there any unrecognised devices (or non-functioning devices) listed in the Device Manager?
recognise the device and load it, or
look for and load a driver automatically, or
fail and ask for a driver.
If it makes the sound but isn't producing requests for drivers then it would seem to me to be recognised, but where is it?
Is anything added to the list of USB devices when plugged in? I'm thinking particularly of double-clicking the USB icon in the System Tray.
Are there any unrecognised devices (or non-functioning devices) listed in the Device Manager?
... Just realized your Aspire isn't a laptop => but the ultra-compact form-factor essentially uses a mobile motherboard and chipset, so the same comment applies ... get a powered hub and I suspect your problem will be resolved :-)
ASKER
Gary, you were right on the money! I plugged it into a Compaq dc powered USB hub(the best usb hub that I've ever owned) & it turned up in the disk management program. It is formatting as we speak! Thank you!!! And thanks to the other members who contributed. ....the griz...
You're most welcome => it's amazing how many USB issues turn out to be power-related. The device makers really need to pay more attention to the USB specs ... or the chipset makers need to do something about the power capability of the ports [or perhaps both :-) ]. With desktops it's not so catastrophic --> if a USB port gets "burned out" due to power issues, you can always add a card; but with laptops/ultra-compact PC's that don't have available slots, a burned out USB port can be a real pain !!
ASKER
Yeah, this is a nice little machine but it does have it's issues. It's basically a laptop on a stand. Working on it is a real PITA!! I'm a pc repair tech & i shudder each time I have to open the case. Try upgrading the processor & memory in one of these beauties!!