Western Digital Externall HDD with S4XP

[seefour05]

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

[MattWilson]

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.

[seefour05]

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.

[MattWilson]

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.

[seefour05]

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

[Thalamus.]

You're welcome..

Hope you enjoy your time in the US..

[seefour05]

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.

[kee-lo_]

Excellent, thanks for the tip too

[davemee]

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.