External hard drive not recognised

[Alison556]

Just had to do a system recovery on my brother's desktop (nightmare) and now the external hard drive isn't being recognised. The USB port is showing as an unknown device.

I used Tweak UI and the drive has got a ? over it.

We've had this problem before and I can't remember how we resolved it. Does anyone have any ideas?

There were no drivers with the external drive - it was just plug and play.

Oh and while I'm on the subject of having to do a system recovery - the option I used reinstalled windows but stored all existing data to a folder (called My Old System or something obsure like that). All his old software is there - can I do anything to move it out of that folder back to the Program Files or something? There's a couple of things that he can't find the discs for though everything else can be reinstalled.

 

[joinerjohn]

Dunno about the external drive, but,, the old stuff that's on the folder you mention, I can help with. Anything on it like old programs, photo's files etc, can be moved over... Open My Documents and then open C/Documents and settings and find the My Old System folder, Open this.
You should now have 2 windows open. Make them both a usable size where you can see both windows side by side,,, then just drag and drop anything from the old system folder to my doc's.
Once you have finished, close the old system folder.
To install programs you have kept, run them from My Documents folder.

PS When I download a program, I usually download it to a download folder, install it from there and after installation, I then delete the downloaded setup program (saves space on the HDD)

 

[empip]

In the case of the external drive...
This may do the trick... See Fruit Bat /\0/\'s 4 replies...

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadid=381149&forumid=1

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[Alison556]

Thanks all. External hard drive is now working fine.

Haven't got round to accessing the programmes in the file.

Spent half the day trying to get the iPhone to connect. What a nightmare.

Got it connected, got it to find the library (which is on the hard drive) but the bloomin thing isn't synching.

I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

Thank goodness for being able to ask and get help.

 

[empip]

Take a look at this freeby... Disc imaging prog'. The first freeby I have noticed with 'differential' backup facility.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/features.html

I use Norton Ghost (2003) - no way state of the art today, but we regularly image several (3) lap and (2) desktops to an external HDD (500 GB drive) the compressed images do not take up too much room.
Advantage?? Can restore a drive to the backed up condition in relatively short order... Files can also be copied / viewed from a 'mounted' archive.

I run Ghost, booting from external Dos floppy disc, thus no OS necessary to be present on HDD, writes to, reads from, external or internal HDD... Flawless thus far... Sadly doesn't support 'differential' imaging tho'.

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[Alison556]

Thanks, I'll have a look at that. It was one of these occassions where I just KNEW a copy of Ghost or similar would have been handy.

I wouldn't normally get into such a pickle cos with my own PC, I've got everything backed up and know where all the discs are, but it was an emergency situation wth my brother's PC (apparently) so just had to go for it.

And now I'm suffering the consequences of him moaning at me that nothing's working - that'll be cos I've not got it all back on yet/