External hard drive problems

[pede9466]

I have a Maxtor Basics 500gb ext hard drive. It was causing problems with backups, so on advice, I tried formatting it. The formatting failed, and since then I can't find the drive on "computer". It's plugged in and I can hear it working. It also shows up on "safely remove hardware" but I can't access it.
I'v gone to Computer management and found the drive on there, but don't know what to do from there. It's showing as unallocated.
I've tried plugging into another computer and the problem is the same.
I'm running Windows 7on the main desktop and I also have a laptop with Vista.

[VHG]

Unless a drive formats correctly it wont have a drive letter alocation (G:, H: or whatever). So it will not show up in "Computer".

Because an external hard drive has both the actual hard drive in it AND some extra electronics it is always difficult to know if it is the hard drive that has gone wrong, or the electronics.

The hard drive MAY be fine, but you will need to take it out the case and put it in another case and see if it works.

Because you were using this external hard drive for backups, then as it is so unreliable I would not risk it for backups in the future anyway, even if you can get it working.

May be time to buy a new external hard drive.

[pede9466]

Thank you. I was thinking much the same anyway, especially as I've had problems with it before. I already have another one but was hoping not to have to keep moving it between laptop and pc.

[Old_Geezer]

Would checking Control Panel / Admin Tools / Comp Mgmt / Disk Mgmt help ?
One can check and change things from there.

[pede9466]

Old_Geezer - Thanks. I've tried that. That's where I found the drive exists but has no drive letter assigned to it, and I can't figure out how to do that.

[Old_Geezer]

Right Click on unallocated drive in lower pane, select 'change drive letter or path'. Or something like that IIRC.

Alternatively there are some decent reformat / move partition type software you can buy that'll probably do it.