[USB2] External Hard drive Not Recognized on XP SP2
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I have tried many different avenues to resolve this issue and its driving me crazy. I purchased a new, preformated (NTFS) external hard drive the other week. I plugged it in on my main computer and it is not recognized. Windows will make a noise showing that it recognizes new hard ware, but will try to install a "USB device" or "Ultra Disk Drive." No real rhyme or reason on which name it choses, but lately it has been the former.

At this point I am sure many of you are thinking of several easy suggestions, but let me assure you I have thought of them already. First, since the drive is rather silent I plugged it into a back-up computer and it worked without issue. I even plugged in an older, less often used USB2 external drive. it was recognized on the old computer but no longer on my main one. switched cables, switched ports, plugged in a working flash drive, et al. In short, the drive works.

I have tried several solutions.
(1) Drive does not show up in Disk Manger so I am unable to assign a different drive letter

(2) have deleted all items in device manger (including hidden) of Unknown devices, Usb devices, and Storage devices. Unplugged all and rebooted twice.

(3) Updated BiOS drivers and chipset drivers. my motherboard is a kt3 ultra2 btw. technically kt3 ultra2r, but that is only important when on the MSI site-- the board is old I know, but i'm poor.

(4) Made sure PnP was enabled in bios (tried it both ways)

(5) even physically replaced the drivers (.sys) from the older computer the drive worked on to new computer--this of course is a pathetic idea.

(6) put in the windows restore disk and tried to install from there

(7) Pretended it was an Ipod and went to the Ipod website and tried all the ideas to fix an ipod with a similar problem. which were two main ones (A) delete temp folder. (B) directed me to the windows website to edit some registry settings. Well delete some, but they were none there to be deleted.

I'm **** out of luck, but now even my older external USB Drive isn't working on this computer anymore. Most of the searches related to this topic have solutions related to the 7 listed above. So a new topic is in order. Any ideas?