Computer not recognizing External USB Hard Drive

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I am using XP Pro & I was having problems shutting down my USB external hard drive using “Safely remove hardware” before turning it off. I would get an ongoing message stating that the drive could not be stopped however although the drive letter continued to show in Windows explorer the contents of the drive showed as empty. When I “shut down” the computer it would regularly stall in the final stages of the shutdown.
After checking online I decided to change write caching to “optimize for quick removal” from “optimize for performance”. In the process the computer locked up.
Since then the computer does not recognize the existence of the drive although it has no problem reading a similar external hard drives. The “defective” drive works perfectly on another computer using XP Home.

In “Computer Management” / “Disk Drives” the drive is shown with a red X as Segate Free Agent USB Device. Under the Properties-General tab there is the message “This device is disabled (Code 22) check enable device to enable”. When I attempt to do this I get the message “Windows was not able to enable this device”.

Can anyone help with this problem?

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I am using XP Pro & I was having problems shutting down my USB external hard drive using “Safely remove hardware” before turning it off. I would get an ongoing message stating that the drive could not be stopped however although the drive letter continued to show in Windows explorer the contents of the drive showed as empty. When I “shut down” the computer it would regularly stall in the final stages of the shutdown.
After checking online I decided to change write caching to “optimize for quick removal” from “optimize for performance”. In the process the computer locked up.
Since then the computer does not recognize the existence of the drive although it has no problem reading a similar external hard drives. The “defective” drive works perfectly on another computer using XP Home.

In “Computer Management” / “Disk Drives” the drive is shown with a red X as Segate Free Agent USB Device. Under the Properties-General tab there is the message “This device is disabled (Code 22) check enable device to enable”. When I attempt to do this I get the message “Windows was not able to enable this device”.

Can anyone help with this problem?

In ‘Comp Management’ / Disc Drives right click on the drive with problem ( ensure a drive letter has been given to it), and choose properties, select the ‘tool’ tab and click on ‘Check Disc’ option. This may just repair any faulty segments on drive caused by the lockup.
Hope this helps.
Clive

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I am using XP Pro & I was having problems shutting down my USB external hard drive using “Safely remove hardware” before turning it off.

It’s not necessary to use the “Safely remove hardware” on an external usb drive, …for future references.
You don’t really need to mess with the default drive performance either.
The best way to remove an external USB drive is to just shut it off and unplug it, nothing else.

In “Computer Management” / “Disk Drives” the drive is shown with a red X as Segate Free Agent USB Device. Under the Properties-General tab there is the message “This device is disabled (Code 22) check enable device to enable”. When I attempt to do this I get the message “Windows was not able to enable this device”.

Try uninstalling or removing the “X’d drive” from within “device manager”. Physically remove the drive before doing so.
Clear out any regitry entries that may reference to it by running CCleaner’s registry cleaner option, or whatever you have handy.
After doing the above, hard boot the system; leave it off for a min or two, then re-initialize the os.

You should then be able to just plug the drive back in and have it recognised. Some drives have separate drivers for added functionality, but XP has functional generic drivers that will have basic support.

I’ve used external USB and Firewire drives whith my old XP, SP3 Pro before converting to all internal HDD’s. Never had an issue with removing a drive in the way I explained.

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Up date:

I have solved the major problem using the first suggestion posted here (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/750576.html) by keystroke-ga . After deleting the hard drive in Device Manager (using the delete key on my keyboard) & restarting the computer, my USB drive appeared. I am still trying to find a solution to the “Safely remove hardware’ problem that started all of this in the first place.
Thanks to all who replied to my thread. I suspect that Clint’s suggestion (above) would have worked just as well had I seen it before using the solution mentioned here.
Clint, with regard to your comments about it not being necessary to use “Safely Remove Hardware” with USB drives, I have seen conflicting opinions on this.

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Thanks to all who replied to my thread. I suspect that Clint’s suggestion (above) would have worked just as well had I seen it before using the solution mentioned here.
Clint, with regard to your comments about it not being necessary to use “Safely Remove Hardware” with USB drives, I have seen conflicting opinions on this.

If a drive is still being accessed–say, by data that has been cached somewhere–and you power it down, the data will be corrupt.

Thus, to unplug without going through the “safely remove” step, be sure the drive light has been off for some seconds first. Then, simply unplugging it is not harmful to drive or data.

I frequently use USB drives, both rotating disks and solid state, and haven’t had a problem with one in several years–but I learned the hard way originally to be sure any disk writes were concluded before pulling the disk! Experience is often the best teacher, after all…

David

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Clint, with regard to your comments about it not being necessary to use “Safely Remove Hardware” with USB drives, I have seen conflicting opinions on this.

Yes, that would depend on the nature and use of the drive. Whether the drive is being actively indexed, or if some deliberate program or process is
actively reading/writing to that specific drive. If all you do is store data with out indexing or other processes, then this would not be an issue with USB.
ESATA drives may be a bit more complicated. They may require the “Safely Remove Hardware” removal.

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