Attached USB drive detected as connected to network - how to change to direct connection?
Background: I purchased ATI Home 2010 about two weeks ago and love it so much (I've already had to do a complete recovery operation that worked perfectly) that I recommended it to a friend and he purchase and installed a copy also. He is not computer savvy, and unknown to me was that his computer (desktop, new, Win7 - 64-bit) has a 1-TB external USB hard drive that is connected directly to the PC as *part of a network* (which was set up for him by BestBuy) between this PC and his old laptop which is running Vista. I didn't know about this arrangement until we tried to do a Nonstop Backup and it failed because network storage is not supported. We have tried disconnecting the USB HD from the machine, rebooting, and reconnecting it in hope that it will be detected as a directly-connected USB HD and therefore OK for using as Nonstop Backup storage. *BUT* the drive is always detected by Win7 as a network-connected drive. This is driving me crazy, since my friend and I can communicate only by phone and I can't see or work with his system.
Can anyone help with this problem: i.e., how to connect this external USB HD so that the system will see it as a directly connected drive so it can be used for Nonstop Backup? Thanks for any help.
Frank
One thing you might try would be to use Windows Disk Managment and remove the drive letter to the external.
Then, assign a new drive letter and assign another letter such as x or y or z. Doing this, the drive letter will always remain the same even when flash drives or cameras, etc are attached.
Don't forget to edit the task and change the target location.
One thing you might try would be to use Windows Disk Managment and remove the drive letter to the external.
Then, assign a new drive letter and assign another letter such as x or y or z. Doing this, the drive letter will always remain the same even when flash drives or cameras, etc are attached.
Don't forget to edit the task and change the target location.
Thanks, Pat L and Grover. I thought of looking at the Computer Management/Disk Management console, but the external drive *did not show up in it.* I was stymied since I don't know *anything* about networking, and not much about disk management either. I thought it would be within my abilities to just change the drive letter, but since it didn't show up at all there was nothing for me to change. Yet it did show up under Network in the left pane of the Explorer window. So I'm totally confused.
Why shouldn't an external USB drive not be "discovered" by the Windows OS when it's plugged in? I can't figure this out.
I recommended to my friend that he call the Help desk (or the Geek Squad) at BestBuy and ask them, since the PC is just about 2 months old and he opted for a lot of goodies. Unfortunately, he's shy about things like this and I'm totally ignorant about networking. I'm afraid there's not much hope for either of us, unless the answer is handed to us on a plate.
Any other suggestions?
Frank
Do you have multiple logins? Is this a "shared" device? Perhaps there are some permission issues.
Try booting into Safe Mode. Once you see the drive in the Disk Management console, you can right click on the disk and make the letter deletions and then the letter additions.
As far as I know, he does not have multiple logins. I'll have to ask to be sure, though. I don't know if the drive is a shared device, although I remember his saying that he wanted it to be able to save files from both of his PCs, so that is a possibility.
I will have him boot into Safe Mode and try the Disk Management console, and see what can be done.
It gets really complicated when the owner of the machine knows very little about what he has, and it's been set up by a third party to begin with, and I'm not knowledgeable about networks. It's somewhat akin to that old saying about the blind trying help by leading the lame.
It may take a day or two, but I'll be back. Thanks for your help. :)
Frank
There is a good chance that the external was installed first on the old computer and it is being shared with the new computer. I am guessing that any changes will have to originate with the old computer and a letter change will not fix the problem but a letter change is still worthwhile.
One test would be to plug the external into the old computer and see if you see it in The Disk Mangement console. If you do see it there, then investigate the shared settings a little further.
There is a good chance is that the external was installed first on the old computer and it is being shared with the new computer. I am guessing that any changes will have to original with the old computer and a letter change will not fix the problem.
One test would be to plus the external into the old computer and see if you see it in The Disk Mangement console. If you do see it there, then investigate the shared settings a little further.
Grover, this is a good suggestion. As soon as my friend is available (might be another day or two) I'll run this by him. Thank you.
Frank
Grover,
The mystery is solved. There were three problems:
(1) The external drive was connected to the _router_, not the computer. (2) The external drive was formatted as FAT, not NTFS. (3) The external drive had major errors on it, making it appear that it was almost full (a 1-TB drive!).
Answers:
(1) My friend is not the brightest of the bunch, and he kept telling me that the drive was connected "somewhere" among the tangle of wires in back of his PC, so he couldn't initially see where it was actually connected. Unknown to me was that he had plugged into the router because he wanted to be able to save files from both of his PCs, the desktop (Win7) and the laptop (Vista). I had him plug it directly into the desktop. At this point it became recognized by the OS as a connected drive, not a networked drive.
(2) When looking at the drive in the Disk Management console, it became apparent that it had been formatted as FAT not NTFS (a 1-TB drive!). He didn't know why; he had bought it from BestBuy in 2008 and that's they way it came. He had files on it that he didn't want to lose, so before trying to convert it to NTFS I copied all his files onto his desktop's desktop.
(3) When I tried to convert the external drive from FAT to NTFS, it failed because there were major errors on it. Chkdsk couldn't fix them. So instead of converting, I reformatted the drive to NTFS.
End of story: After reformatting the drive we started up ATI Home 2010 (full, registered version), created the startup boot CD, and started up Nonstop Backup. It completed the first full backup successfully and is running at this moment.
Thank you for your help. This has been a case history in finding out what your equipment is and what it can and can't do before setting out to do something new.
Frank
It's always nice to hear about a successful conclusion. Thank you. You still might want to consider a drive letter change so that inserting a flash drive or camera or printer does not cause your backups to fail with "can't find device" error message. If you make the change, don't forget to update your task destination drive.