External Hard Drive help!

[RadicalSights]

I have a samsung external hard drive here sent from someone with files on it. But I can't access it because no drive letter shows up for it. It's shown in device manager and shows that its installed and working fine but how d oyou access it?

Does it need to be partitioned or something??

[AaronM]

I have a samsung external hard drive here sent from someone with files on it. .......Does it need to be partitioned or something??

What do you think will happen to the files if you partition that drive?

[chris_joseph]

try changing/assigning a new drive letter into it, it's current drive letter might be already in use.

[pornguy]

PLug it in and reboot.

And if you dont know the answer to Aaron's question, you better ask someone who does.

[bobby666]

is it ntfs, fat, fat32 ???????????????????

[mynameisjim]

Don't format it or partition it via Windows, you will lose everything.

If you are on XP and the partition is too big, you will not be able to access it. If it is just free space and the actual content is smaller, you can repartition it into two smaller drives with a third party program. But once again, DONT do it with windows, only use software that won't destroy the data like Partition Magic or similar.

edit: To be more clear, XP and some older machines combined cannot access drives over a certain size. I forget the exact limitations.

[bbobby86]

if ntfs first try to changing/assigning a new drive letter into it, if that don`t works than try format and give partition with some program for parttitions...