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carlf
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carlf
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Registered: ‎05-19-2011
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Onetouch new drive letter assigned by computer

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‎05-19-2011 10:48 AM

This is a Maxtor One Touch III 500GB USB. We store photos on it and have assigned the drive letter P:. We use Picassa3 to work with the photos; Picassa has been configured to access the P drive. But, sometimes suddenly Picassa can no longer find the drive. My Computer does not show it. If I turn the drive off for a minute, then back on, usually My Computer regognizes it, but as G:, which is the next available drive letter after the other external USB drive, H:.

Why does this happen and how can it be prevented?

Thank you.

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carlf
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carlf
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Re: Onetouch new drive letter assigned by computer

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‎05-19-2011 01:30 PM

Addendum from carlf:

I forgot to specify, this is windows xp sp3

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AlanM
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Re: Onetouch new drive letter assigned by computer

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‎05-20-2011 07:38 AM

Hmmm, I think we might go about this in a few different ways. 

 

1) Disconnect the other external drive for now.

 

2) Disable the sleep feature.  Right-click on (My) Computer | Manage | Device Manager | Universal Serial Bus Controllers | double-click on the 1st Root Hub | go to the Power tab | see if the drive is connected to it.  If not, try the next Root Hub. 

If so, click the Power Management tab.  

Uncheck the box that says: "allow computer to turn off this device to save power".

 

And then also pull up the Maxtor Manager and go to Power Settings, turn Sleep to Never.

 

3) Then run chkdsk on the drive to make sure the data is not corrupted.

 

4) Then change the drive letter. Right-click on My Computer > Manage > Disk Management > right-click on the drive letter > Change Drive Letter and Paths > change it to something that will certainly not be taken up by any other device, like M: or W: or something.  

 

Let me know how it goes.

 

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treehome
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treehome
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Registered: ‎05-29-2010
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Re: Onetouch new drive letter assigned by computer

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‎05-28-2011 01:04 PM

Thanks for the help. Chkdsk finds no problems. I re-assigned the drive letter- actually this is the 3rd time I've had to do that. The Power Management and Maxtor/ Seagate manager power settings were set to put the drive to sleep when not in use, so I changed that. Really didn't think that was the issue, though, because a couple of times the drive disappeared and lost it's letter immediately after writing data to it. Anyway, ok so far now. Thanks again, Carl
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