Maxtor OneTouch II external drive

Some external storage devices work poorly or not at all when connected to a hub; try connecting the drive directly to a port on the computer. Also check if it's detected in "Disk Management". Here you can verify if the partition and format are correct for the Operating System. Check the Drive's status in Device manager. This will verify if the external drive has a drive letter designation. Check Partition and Format. Log in as Administrator account in windows or any other account with administrative privileges Insert your removable disk into the USB port. Click Start, right click on computer and select manage. Now, click Disk Management. Check whether drive letter for the device is present. Check the lower window to find whether the device is detected (such as Disk 1, Disk 2, etc). If the device is detected with a drive letter, verify that no other device is using that drive letter. If it is, change it to unused drive letter. Hope this helps.

A USB hard drive is a portable external storage device that works just like a conventional hard drive.

The device is simply plugged into a USB port on your computer as you would connect a flash drive.

Unlike a flash drive, however, a USB hard drive can store a much larger amount of data.

If your computer will not recognize your USB hard drive, you can try troubleshooting steps to resolve the problem.

Plug one end of the USB cable into the port on your hard drive and plug the other end into the USB port of your computer. Ensure that both ends of the cable are connected securely.

Open "My Computer" (Windows XP) or "Computer" (Windows Vista/7).

The USB device should be listed as "removable disk" once it is plugged into the computer.

If it is not listed among the available drives on your computer, proceed to the next step.

Ensure that the data cable is working properly.

Try another USB cable if you have one available.

Disconnect all other USB devices from the computer as they may interfere with the operating system detecting the external hard drive.

Reboot the computer if the USB hard drive is still not recognized.

Plug the USB cable into another USB port and check to see if the device is detected.

If you are using a USB hub, remove the device and plug the external hard drive directly into a USB port.

If the computer still fails to recognize the device, the external hard drive itself may be experiencing a hardware problem.

Check the status of the hard drive in the "Device Manager" window. Under Windows XP, right click "My Computer" and select "Device Manager."

For Windows Vista and Windows 7, click the "Windows" button in the lower left corner of the screen, then type "Computer Management" in the search bar and press "Enter."

Select "Device Manager" in the "Computer Management" window. In the Device Manager window, click the "+" sign that appears beside "Disk Drives."

If the external drive is not listed, click "Other Devices" in the Device Manager window and see if an "Unknown Device" appears.

The external hard drive may have been detected but the device is not working properly.

If it is still under warranty, take the device to the computer store where it was purchased to have it repaired or replaced.

Hope this helps

If your using xp, right click on my computer, click manage and then disk manager and see if the drive is in thereright click and you can explore the drive, if t not in there go to device manager and see if the drive is in there if not try in different usbports on your machine if same issue try on a different PC if possible and if same issue drive is faulty, contact toshiba for replacement (although they take ages to replace a drive)

Have you made any recent hardware changes to your PC?

First check device manager by right clicking on My Computer and then properties. If using Vista or Windows 7 device manager should appear on the left side. If in XP or earlier click the hardware tab and then device manager. Find your dvd drive in the listing and make sure there are no errors present for the device. Go to the devices manufacturers website and download the lastest drivers. Install and reboot.

If the device does not appear in device manager and installing drivers did not fix it, the device may have become unplugged or may not be installed properly.

If the Floppy Drive is not appearing in my Computer, open the PC and check that the cables are connected to the drive properly.

Also open Device Manager and check under Floppy Disk Drives that the drive actually appears there.

When you restart your computer, is there an option to "change boot order", to choose the CD/DVD drive as the boot-device?
If so, insert your Microsoft Windows DVD into the drive,
and restart your computer, and select the DVD-drive as the boot device. Does it read the disk, and boot into the Windows Installer?
If so, then the hardware is OK, and you have some sort of "software" problem, rather than having a "hardware" problem.

You might just need to assign a drive letter to it. Although this is generally automatic, something may have happened to cause it to lose it's format or drive letter. Check out the below link. I am pretty confident this will fix your problem.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-change-the-drive-letter-in-windows-xp-for-an-external-usb-stick-or-hard-drive/

If the Printer drivers disc is not detected in the computer, try using another disc (it could be anything, music, movies, any disk which you know is good) on the same computer.

If the second disk works, try Step 1 else skip to Step 2 below.

STEP 1:
It look like an issue with your drivers disk. Unfortunately, Dell doesnt provide replacements for Printer drivers disk anymore. But, you can always download the drivers from the support website (Use the link below).

http://ftp.us.dell.com/printer/R148156.exe

STEP 2:
It seems to be an issue with the settings of the optical drive of your system.

1. Check if the drive letter appears in the "Computer" of your system. To do this, click on 'Start' and click on 'Computer'. If the icon for your drive doesn't appear here, it could be an issue with the DVD drive itself, or the Windows Vista/7 OS.

2. If the drive icon appears, but the disk doesn't work, try check the Device Manager for errors. To open the device manager, try one of the following steps:

• Open Device Manager by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Device Manager.‌ If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
• Click on Start button , type "device manager" in the Start Search box, and click on Device Manager in the list that populates above.
• Press and hold the Windows key on the keyboard and press Pause-Break key. It would open the system properties dialog. On the left hand side, click on Device Manager. To reach the system properties, you can also click on Start button , Right-click on Computer and click on Properties.

3. If the Device manager shows a yellow exclamation or a question mark sign next to you DVD drive, follow the steps below:

1. Click Start Collapse this imageExpand this image , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit in the Programs list.
   
   Collapse this imageExpand this image If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}Caution There can be many instances of the registry subkey that is mentioned in step 2. You must make sure that you are in the appropriate registry subkey before modifying the UpperFilters and the LowerFilters values. To verify that you are in the appropriate registry subkey, make sure that the Default data value is DVD/CD-ROM and the Class data value is CDROM.
3. In the right pane, right-click UpperFilters, and then click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the UpperFilters registry entry.
5. In the right pane, right-click LowerFilters, and then click Delete.
6. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the LowerFilters registry entry.
7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

This should resolve your problem.

There are 3 things to do:

1, Flash drive is damaged, check if it works on another computer.
2, if it appears in device manager, and no new drives in my computer you may have to reinstall windows.
3, If check if it contains a partition, if not device manager will show but ot will not appear in my computer.

Go on their website and download the software. It is available for free.