External Drives Not Recognised

I have HP Pavilion a6250 desktop computer and a HP Pavilion g6-1075sa laptop - both running Windows7 Home Premium.
I have three external drives, used for backup. I not backed up for far too long, so am tackling the issue now. The laptop has previously been backed up to my Verbatim drive - I know this because I can see the folder called "Laptop BackUp 20.05.2013" on the drive right now - with the Verbatim plugged into the desktop machine.
When I plug the Verbatim into the laptop, that machine says the drive needs formatting before it can be used. How can this be when the two worked together last May?
So I decide to copy all the Verbatim's contents onto the desktop's C drive and then allow the laptop to format it. No good - not enough room left on that C drive.
Ok, out comes my Maxtor OneTouch drive and and a third drive just identified as "Hi-Speed Certified USB", both of which have worked fine in the past, (but so long ago that I cannot remember much about it! The laptop does not recognise either on My Computer, (even though both provoked the machine into "installing driver software" successfully).
Ah, what about the installation CDs? So I successfully install OneTouch onto the laptop from the CD, Re-Start the laptop, then run the Maxtor software. It pops up settings window containing a panel within which I am instructed to select a drive. Can't! It's empty. The drive is still not showing on My Computer either. So plugged Maxtor into the desktop as that machine recognised the Verbatim - but no, it doesn't know the Maxtor - nor the Hi-Speed drive either when I tried that. (Yes all the drives ARE properly plugged in, switched on, and showing power leds illuminated correctly!).
So much bl**** kit and none of it working properly!
Help!
Alex.

 

Hello Alex, and welcome to Computer Help Forums. It seems that you are not too far away from where I live. So it's especially nice to welcome a local member.

First of all we should all take note that just because something was working on our computer yesterday, doesn't mean that it will work today...That's the nature of things breaking down...

Ok..a couple of questions to help establish the facts.

Desktop Computer
1. What is the total size of the internal HDD?
2. Is this drive partitioned? ( Does it have for example a D: drive as well as a C: drive)
3. What is the total amount of free space on the internal drive?

Laptop Computer
1. What is the total size of the internal HDD?
2. Is this drive partitioned? ( Does it have for example a D: drive as well as a C: drive)
3. What is the total amount of free space on the internal drive?

External Drives
What size are each of the external drives?

Here's a suggestion...
Take all of your external drives to a friends house who obviously must have a computer with a load of empty space on their HDD. And after making a new folder on their computer which you could name for example "Alex".

Then copy all and any data from your external drives to the new folder, before reformatting the drives that you have successfully backed up to the Alex folder on your friends PC.

This will establish two things.
1...Which drives if any are defective.
2...And of course also have the effect of helping to establish if your own computers are at fault for the problems you are having.

Another option that will be open to you will be to run Check Disk on the drives that your friends PC recognises.

 

Hi again Bob,

Ok, here’s the info you requested:

Internal HDD Total Internal HDD Free Partitioned?

Desktop Computer: 458GB 8.87GB Yes, Drives C: and D: (D: labelled as Factory Image)

Laptop 450GB 229GB Yes, Drives C:, D: (Recovery) and F: (HP Tools)


Both computers bought from new, (desktop getting on for 3 years old, laptop 18 months old). Both came with the above partitions ready done – nothing to do with me!

On powering up this morning the laptop had another problem. I switched both on, entered passwords on both, went to desktop to sort out above details, went to laptop and it had crashed, – white text on black screen (computer did not start up correctly). Pressed return, and laptop got to password screen correctly. Entered password and went back to desktop whilst waiting. Glanced across to laptop – screen had got to the desktop, finished on main machine, went to laptop – crashed again. Restarted it, same enter password and wait routine. Checked emails on desktop, looked across, laptop ready to use, finished on desktop first, went to laptop, crashed again. Restarted, entered password, sat and watched it, touching nothing. Eventually it got to the desktop, but the pointer showed repeated hourglass. Still touched nothing and waited. Eventually a message popped up about not able to run two copies of Open Office (version 3.4.1) simultaneously. As I said, not touched anything, let alone try to run Open Offfice or any other app. Clicked on ok, message went away, (Open Office did not launch anyway), and laptop now stable – it has sat waiting normally to be used all the while I’ve been typing this on the desktop machine.

Obvious questions – has this happened before, and what has changed?
No to the the first question, and “Installed Maxtor OneTouch” driver yesterday, as described – other than that no new software or other change for a good long while now.

Having spotted the OneTouch shortcut on the screen whilst waiting for the hourglass to cease, (ie. before the Open Office message popped up), I did wonder if the machine was hunting for the Maxtor drive – I unplugged it last night and put it away so it was not physically connected now, but I guess the Open Office message scuppers that idea.

Thanks again for your interest – much appreciated.


Alex.

 

PS Have noted your other kind suggestions - will look at those if necessary, but will wait for responses to what I have said above first.

 

Hi Alex...Who's Bob?.......Lol

It will help us here (Read less confusing for me) if when answering you only click the "Reply" button when you actually need to quote another post in the thread.
At all other times it's easiest to just scroll to the bottom of the page and use the quick reply box you will find there.

Thanks for posting the information to date...
The first thing that caught my eye in your reply was the fact that it appears that you only have 8.87GB of free space on the desktop C: drive. This could be causing you a problem in its self. Most technicians would advise that a minimum of 15% space on a HDD/Partition should be left free. In your case this would mean between 70GB and 75GB on the drive partition in question. You really MUST unload some of your personal files from this drive.

On your desktop computer, when clicking on Start/Computer, does the C: drive show as a red line?

It would be very helpful if you could post screen shots of Disk Management from both your desktop and your laptop.

To get into Disk Management...
Click Start
Right click Computer
Select Manage
Select Disk Management

Tip: The easiest method of getting a screen grab on Win 7 machines is to use the Snipping Tool. If it's not in your Start Menu, look in Accessories.
If you need more help with this, please just ask.

It will also be easiest if from this point onwards you separate your posts, and make them either pertaining to either your desktop or your laptop. This will be less confusing for all concerned.

 

Hi PseFrank,
Sorry about the wrong name. The email I got on my phone came from bob@computerhelpforums.net so I sort of thought that it came from bob .....!!!!!
Quick bit of background - given with the hope that it will help you to help me more easily. I am a retired teacher, and have been teaching computers for around 30 years, so am a very experienced and confident computer-user.
However that depth of experience taught me long ago:
a) that I am never going to know it all
b) that there will always be others who still know far more than me
c) that I am still just as likely to trip over very basic mistakes - like have I plugged it in - so check the simple things first (hence why I failed to scroll down far enough to spot the quick reply box, for example!!!)
d) that I should never be, (and am not), too proud to admit to sheer plain ignorance and to ask for help
Ok, rant over ;-) Well except to say that you are of course quite correct about deleting stuff ... but that's why I started the attempted backup in the first place!

Nope, the C: drive is NOT showing as a red line - just normal, regardless of size of icon selected.

I'm well used to the snipping tool - use it often, so here included is the Disk Management screenshot for my desktop machine.

However, I can't oblige with same for the laptop. Tried, got as far as the User Account Control window asking permission to allow changes, click Yes, but then got an error window saying "Windows cannot find 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\ ... blah blah, more path-name text ...\Computer Management.Ink' Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again."

So what next, very pretty please?

Bless you for helping me.

Alex.

 

What size is the Verbatim external? And more to the point how much data does it have on it?

What I'm thinking is, if you had another external drive (Maybe borrow one) that had the capacity to hold all of the data from the Verbatim drive, you could plug both of them into your desktop machine and transfer all of the data from the Verbatim to the new/borrowed drive.
This of course would allow you to reformat the Verbatim via your laptop.

You may have already considered this as an option, but have hesitated due to the cost of a new external drive that is big enough to hold the Verbatims data. So that leaves the option of using a friends or neighbours computer to temporarily store your files, etc, until you have reformatted the externals.

There is always the chance as well that all of your external drives would be recognised by another known to be healthy computer. That would give you the opportunity to run Check Disk on those drives without losing the data from them. They may well then be recognised by one or both of your own computers, and your problem would be solved...

 

The Verbatim drive has 1.36 TB. Of that, 569GB is free, so 826GB used space.
I'm not averse to buying another drive, so will if necessary,( these days they are relatively cheap), it's just that already possessing three external drives, (well in fact four - I also have a LaCie Rikiki which I've only just remembered about!), so it's a trifle annoying to be spending money on yet another drive.

Ha! - and now that you've got me thinking straight:
1. the Rikiki is a 232GB drive, of which 24GB is free - and which the laptop IS recognising.
2. I've even also got a Ready NAS drive which currently is of no use because although it IS showing on the desktop, attempts to click on it in "Computer" are met with "An error occurred while reconnecting L: to \\READYNAS\Media - Microsoft Windows Network: The network path was not found. This connection has not been restored." This is another problem which I've been trying to find time to address for months now. All I can tell you is that from memory I'm very sure that this NAS has more than enough room to soak up the Verbatim's capacity - and it DOES have a USB port I could use. (By way of explanation, my personal life resulted in me being out of the country for almost a year - leaving all this kit to gather dust - I only got back here in January this year).

Sorry, more rambling! I'm 68 - that any good as an excuse?
Alex.

 

You're making me smile Alex...I'm not 60 yet, and people tell me I ramble on sometimes. (read all the time).

Lets see if we can get the data off the Verbatim...I'm hopeful now that we can.