I am having trouble with a windows Vista laptop seeing an external Hard drive.  It can see a flash drive and opens A "What do you want windows to do?"  box  when one is plugged in.  Does nothing when an extrernal hard drive is plugged in, like a Seagate Free Agent or a WD drive.  

Now There are 3 reasons that I know external drives are communicating with the computer.  One on being plugged in,  the pilot led on the external drive turns on, two the external can be seen in  BIOS, and 3 Device Manager identifies the drive..But windows explorer can not

Because my laptop had been getting so slow I wanted to return to a backup that I had made shortly after I got it.  I had installed all the then current updates, upgrades, service packs, Avast, zone alarm, and a couple of anti-virus programs, like Ad-aware etc, then, used Acronis and one of my Seagate backup drives to do a reference backup.

What I wanted to do was to identify which Seagate held the first backup, (I have 2 for alternate monthly backups), do a right now backup, then restore the computer to its earlier pristine condition.  Then gradually recover the since added programs, leaving out many of those added but not really ever used.  Hopefully to regain a faster compter,  microwave the molasses so it flows faster so to speak.  

But with out seeing the initial backup, without seeing the drive  I couldn't even do a current backup.  What I had to do, eventually, was boot the computer from an Acronis boot recovery CD, do the backup, then reinstall the first backup.  Thoes two tasks went OK.

When that was complete the laptop was able to respond to the Seagate being plugged in or out and could be seen in windows explorer.  End of story!  Not quite.  As a few days past and as missing updates (windows, avast, zone alarm etc.)were downloaded and installed and as I periodically checked to see that removables could still be seen AND after some 39 updates were installed external drives lost contact again.  The computer may be faster but I would feel better if it could see removable drives,   SO!  What is the solution??  Thank you.

warrantyvoider said:

What happens when you plug one of your external drives into a PC other than your laptop? 

It works all the time, besides it works on the laptop when the backup software is activated via the recovery boot up compact disc.  The problem is with the OS.  Also a Western Digital removable hard drive can not be seen either.  I wanted to use the Seagate as it would have both the earlier backup as well as a more recent backup.

I might add that recognition is unavailable in the safe mode and also not helped by disableing start up porgrams via msconfig.  Also the Seagate was recognized right after the earlier backup recovery but before updating all the patches.

Unchecking the Folder Options "Hide protected operating system files (Recomended OFF),  thus turning that feature ON doesn't help either.

Question.

When I did the image recovery back to July 2009 didn't  I eliminate any of the recent system restore points?

I miss the monthly calendar layout of system restore from My XP system where restore points are indicated by the days being bolded / highlighted.  My only listing of restore points are in menu form and only go back less than 2 weeks.  There were several updates on February 26 and again on  February 28.  Laptop is presently restoring to the 26th and is really taking its time.

The computer did not come with a Vista disk, only contained the operating system and the Acer laptop programs in the hidden partition.  I have wanted to create a set of backup CD's but the computer does not have an eRecoveryUI.exe and I had zero luck trying to get through the maze at the Acer web site to download the missing file.  Google has not been much help either.

The spinning lock washer has been going on now for 11 minutes and I should get out the power supply and plug it in before the battery upsets the recovery.

At this point, I'd really try hard to find a friend/relative/IT guy at work who has access to an appropriate Vista disk, and borrow it from him/her.

With a disk, you can re-install Vista, and your problems will be solved in ~2-3 hours.  It's that, or you can try chipping away at it for a few more days (and maybe not make any progress).

Best of luck.  I feel your pain.

Awesome.  Glad you got it figured out.   Do everybody a favor and post the Ask Leo link.

chack said:

Ask Leo!" <leo@ask-leo.com> 

<leo@pugetsoundsoftware.com> 

The upper one should be enough.  He puts out a weekly question and answer page, that is free and very informative.  He will be glad to have additional viewers.  

Ummmmmm…..What's the link to the forum thread regarding your problem?

You posted his email address.