LaCie Hard Drive not recognized by Windows 7

Anonymous
2010-02-13T02:14:12+00:00

I have a LaCie external USB hard drive (formatted FAT32) that shows up as a device in the control panel but does not appear as a drive or other device in the Windows Explorer.

The drive contains my music library. Any advice on how to find/access this drive?

Thanks.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2010-02-13T23:17:38+00:00

Hi,

 Do you see any yellow\red exclamation mark in device manager?

 I would suggest you to open Disc management and check if the drive is detected there, here are the steps:

1.      1. Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer    Management. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2.      2. In the left pane, click Disk Management.

If it the hard drive recognizes in the disc management and if there is no drive letter assigned, I would suggest you right click on the drive and assign a drive letter and check if it helps:

1.      1. Right-click the drive to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.

2.      2. Do one of the following:

·         To assign a drive letter if one has not already been assigned, click Add, click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK.

·         To change a drive letter, click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK.

·         To remove a drive letter, click Remove, and then click Yes to confirm that you want to remove it.

Refer this link for more information:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-add-or-remove-a-drive-letter

Please respond back with the status of the issue and let us know if you have any issues.

Azam – Microsoft Support.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-09-23T23:46:00+00:00

    Azam,

    I had this problem and followup your instructions and was able to access the drive.  However, this drive had around 100Gb of files on it before I connected to it from my computer.  These files are now gone!  This hard drive is not mine and was lent from a Mac User.  How do I recover these files?

    -Rjhojo

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-09-28T23:16:54+00:00

    Hi, 

    Its likely that the disk is formatted HFS+, which is the native file system for OSX but is unreadable on Windows. If you've already followed the directions in this forum its possible you formatted the drive. If that;s the case, the data will need to be re-acquired from the original source.

    I recommend having the Mac user who lent you the drive format it to FAT32. This file system is readable by both OSX and Windows and should let you copy the data (unless any individual file is larger than 4GB). If that's not possible, you can try a program like MacDrive to add HFS support to your Windows computer, but that may not be the best solution.

    Finally, you can contact our support at www.lacie.com/mystuff to talk with our technicians and get some more ideas or suggestions.

    ~mn, LaCie

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-04-22T14:34:35+00:00

    This did not work for me.

    When I right click "change drive letter and paths" isn't an option.

    Also, In device manager, "IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers" does not even exist or appear, so I can't update the driver.

    I am trying to get my LaCie 1TB rugged drive to work. It will recognize it in devices and printers, but won't open it.

    help

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-04-25T02:40:29+00:00

    This did not work for me.

    When I right click "change drive letter and paths" isn't an option.

    Also, In device manager, "IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers" does not even exist or appear, so I can't update the driver.

    I am trying to get my LaCie 1TB rugged drive to work. It will recognize it in devices and printers, but won't open it.

    help

    Please contact our support at www.lacie.com/mystuff or 503-844-4500 (USA) to talk with a technician. They will be able to help you identify the issue and resolve it. 

    ~mn

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