External Hard Drive Not Detected

aidanharris

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Dec 4, 2013
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I have a Lacie P'9233 (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10587) 4tb harddrive that no matter what will not be detected by my desktop computer. There is nothing wrong with the USB port (I've checked it can read USB drives fine and I can even boot Ubuntu off a USB). The drive is not damaged either since it works no problem at all in my 15" Retina MacBook Pro (that I'm coincidently using to type this).

My motherboard is an Asrock H55M-GE R 2.0 (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H55M-GE%20R2.0/) my gut feeling is that this drive is not supported in which case :( or that there are settings in my BIOS that need enabling (or disabling).

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Solution


It does not show up at all. The specs for my motherboard can be found here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H55M-GE%20R2.0/?cat=Spec...

Is there anything that jumps out on there that could easily suggest that it does not support the drive?

If not are there any BIOS settings that could perhaps prevent it from...

mesab66

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Aug 5, 2009
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Some older systems have problems with >2tb. You'll need at least W7 and format the drive as type GPT. Additionally, sometimes systems have difficulty with external HDDs.
To test this, go into Computer Management then select Disk Management. If (and only if) your disk is there it probably won't have a drive letter associated. Right click on it and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Your HDD should now show up in Windows.
 

aidanharris

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Dec 4, 2013
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It does not show up at all. The specs for my motherboard can be found here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H55M-GE%20R2.0/?cat=Spec...

Is there anything that jumps out on there that could easily suggest that it does not support the drive?

If not are there any BIOS settings that could perhaps prevent it from being discovered?
 
Solution

aidanharris

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Dec 4, 2013
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Dualboot with Elementary OS and Windows 8 neither of which detects the drive (you can see specific output from Ubuntu here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/385934/unable-to-mount-usb-hard-drive)

The fact that neither operating systems can detect the harddrive leads me to believe that something is fundamentally wrong with my BIOS setup or OS setup or that the harddrive is not compatible and cannot be used (despite the fact it has support for USB 2 and 3)
 

aidanharris

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Dec 4, 2013
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I'm beginning to make some progress in Windows using Diskpart. I can see a 3726GB disk (it must be my harddrive) as follows:

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 2 Online 3726 GB 3725 GB *

Any idea how I can mount this?

EDIT: I'm formatting the disk now fingers crossed that it will work...

I'll report back afterwards. Until then thanks for all of your help so far :)