Not your typical Windows/External drive question

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello. I just installed Windows, updated it, and got everything running smoothly. Only problem is, I can't get Windows to give my external drive a drive letter and be able to use it as external storage. I've tried formatting it with a GUID partition table and MBR (both times using the MS-DOS file system), but neither approach worked. The funny thing is, Windows knows that the drive is there because it shows up in the Device Manager. It does NOT show up in the Disk Management Console, though - so I can't format it and make it work.

 

[balamw]

Boot Camp or Parallels/VMWare?

Which Mac?

Firewire or USB?

Do you have another disk to try?

B

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Boot Camp or Parallels/VMWare?

Which Mac?

Firewire or USB?

Do you have another disk to try?

B

Boot Camp. MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz 17". Firewire disk (LaCie 250 GB). I do have a second disk, but it's being used to back up my Mac.

 

[balamw]

FWIW a Windows based friend had similar trouble with a LaCie drive, One of his Windows boxes would not mount it even though it was in the device manager and worked fine on another box. He updated the firmware and all was fine.

Not that that's your issue, but one possibility.

Can you try the same drive via USB? Also, why bother with GUID? Stick with MBR and make a big dumb FAT32 partition.

B

 

[wrldwzrd89]

FWIW a Windows based friend had similar trouble with a LaCie drive, One of his Windows boxes would not mount it even though it was in the device manager and worked fine on another box. He updated the firmware and all was fine.

Not that that's your issue, but one possibility.

Can you try the same drive via USB? Also, why bother with GUID? Stick with MBR and make a big dumb FAT32 partition.

B

Whee, success! Updating the drive's firmware did the trick.