I bought a Seagate 250gig external Hard Drive. It worked perfectly at first. I backed up nearly all my music. After a couple of weeks I decided to make it last longer by switching it off while I wasn't using it. I clicked on the icons in the tray and it told me it was ok to switch off mass storage device 'H' (which was my HD's letter)So I did. Later though, when I switched it back on, the error message 'H is not accessible, this folder was moved or removed) came up. I have tried all combinations of switching on and off ie Switch off, restart ,Switch on or leave switch on and restart etc, but nothing works. It is a USB connected drive. Can anyone help please?
PS
Win 2000 prof op system. Doesn't require an external driver.

Could you try the drive on another computer to see if it works?

What is the exact model of your drive?

Thankyou for answering. I don't have access to another computer at the moment so I can't try it. I am not sure what the exact identification is. I'll type everything visible whic might have to do with the model.
ITE E106814
Part no 9BD833-61
Serial no 5ND3CGTN
ST300003U2
Is this of any help?
Eddy

I did a search for the model - ST300003U2 - nothing was found in my searches with that number on the Seagate website. Seagate has a External Drive Troubleshooter that you should go through to see if you can come up with a solution to your problem. Let us know how you make out with them.

http://www.seagate.com/support/ts/external...device_mgr.html

Thanks very much. I will try the site and see what it says.
Eddy

Had An E-mail asking if I had any luck with my Seagate external HD. I can't find this person's enquiry in this forum and there was no E-mail address. Anyway here is a reply. I went to the site recommended by JC but it didn't solve my problem. I have decided to wait until I can try the HD on another machine (not too long of course it might be faulty). I had a similar problem with a quite expensive MP3 player. It worked perfectly for a while then one day it was not recognised. I thought that the player was at fault since I had done nothing to the computer previously. I sent it back to the makers and it was returned with the message that it was working ok. I next got the chance to try it on an XP machine and it was recognised. I tried all sorts to try and solve the problem but with no luck. I reinstalled Win2000d the player was recognised and have had no trouble with the it since. I will presume the Seagate drive is ok and the fault lies with my machine. The only difference is that the drive has an on-off switch whereas I had to unplug the MP3 player. I will wait and see. If the XP machine doesn't recognise it then I will send it back as faulty.

Try plugging it into another usb port.

Well I always think when i see these things, two things, one HijackThis log because stuff that gets destroyed by being plugged in too long is not right . But more importantly, I think you should check up on your usb drivers. Check for an error in device manager. if there is none get back to me.

Sorry for the delay but I couldn't continue until I tried the drive on another m/c . At last I managed to test it today on a machine with XP OS. It wouldn't show up on that machine either. I tried every USB port as well. I have sent an Email to the firm where I got the HD and I am waiting for a reply. In the meantime I will reconnect the drive and try every USB port on my machine. I didn't try any other ports the first time. I will look in device manager and see if there is an error for my USB connection.
eddy

Does the light on the hard drive come on when you press the button?

Are you sure it's getting power?

Seagate hard drives are warrantied for five years, and they are excellent in providing warranty service (at least they were for me - I will never buy a different brand!) so you have no problem as far as that goes.

Go into computer management (after you check that the hard drive is getting power) and see if you can see the drive there - even if it has a different drive letter or no drive letter at all).

Tried the HD again and had a look in device manager and there was a yellow exclamation in the usb connections which disappeared after disconnection. When I first connect the HD I get a message saying that Windows will look for a driver and asks me to identify the the location of an appropriate driver ie CD drive etc. But there is no CD since the HD uses an already available Windows driver. I had bought a USB hub and tried it for the first time. Again I got the recognition of a USB device but not the driver. Yet if I plug in my mp3 player connector into the same USB port, it is recognised and no conflict exclamation mark in device manager. I do not know what is wrong it has got me really puzzled.
Eddy

If it didn't work on the other computer, and it doesn't work on your computer, I would suspect that your drive is defective. I would talk with Seagate and see if you can get a warranty replacement. Tell them that you tried it on 2 computers without success. Don't give them any doubt that the drive is defective. Hopefully, you have the same success getting the drive replaced as Enthusiast did.

Let us know.

Thankyou for your useful replies. I will contact Seagate and see what they say. I am not sure where computer management is. What is the path? The drive light does come on. Anyway I will have to leave it till tomorrow now as it is 12.45am here. So will have another go on Fri.
Eddy

http://www.seagate.com/support/ts/external...device_mgr.html

The disc doesn't show up in disc management. I followed the Seagate link and got the phone number. I had a chat with one of their staff. When I mentioned that the drive had not been recognised on two machines he concluded it was faulty. I was given a telephone number for the warranty service but I was waiting for a reply from the firm where I bought it first. I have since had reply and they are going to send a replacement and refund any cost of the return. I do hope the replacement works. Why I am saying this is the thought that the fault might lie with my computer. Remember I said the USB hub wasn't recognised yet the light came on. My Epson printer hasn't been working either. The mp3 players (2 with different mp3 connectors) and my Broadband USB connection are ok. But I cannot have 3 faulty devices, can I? Anyway I will wait and see. Thanks again for your help, I will get back to you when I have some news.
Eddy

Unplug the devices that aren't working and go back to your device manager.

If there is anything in the USB section that has the yellow or red warning icon delete it.

Then reboot and let Windows find and reinstall it.

Instead of a "CD" use Windows Updates as the source for the driver. Windows Updates universally supports USB drivers.

After the hub or port driver is reloaded, shutdown the computer and plug the USB devices back into the USB ports.

See if Windows finds them and recognizes them.

Hello everyone. Thanks to JC, Enthusiast, Gyro and anyone I have missed. I said I would get back and tell you how things have worked out, so here goes.
When I discovered the drive was not working or not being recognised by my machine, I tried it on an XP computer as mentioned. It still didn't work so I contacted the supplier and they said they would replace it. They gave me a date of 11th-13th Oct and that they would cover any postage costs.
In the meantime I decided to try and get my printer to work again. I didn't know what had caused it to stop. I decided to contact Epsom and they have an instant messenger sort of service called E-talk, where you can talk with a live person. I was told to uninstall the printer in add-remove programs. When I tried, I found that I couldn't make the complete uninstall. I told Epsom this and was asked if I had any documents pending. I said no, as far as I knew I had not had the printer working for weeks. On the third session I was asked to double click on the printer icon in the control panel. I discovered that I had 5 printers, not one. In other words I had one proper printer and four defaults. Epsom told me to uninstall each one in turn. This I tried to do but was left with two which wouldn't uninstall. I was then asked again if I was sure there were no documents pending. Again I said no. Then Epsom told me to double click on each icon and see what it said. Sure enough there were documents in the pending list. These were actually test prints I had tried with no success to print. So I deleted them and hey presto I found I could make a total uninstall. I reinstalled the printer and it finsished with a note saying there was an error due to a missing INF file. A note came up next saying install complete so I thought it would be ok. But no. The printer still didn't work. I got back in touch with Epsom and when I mentioned the missing INF file they told me it was a Windows problem and not that of the printer. I was told to try the internet and I might find my solution there. This I did but the process was so involved I was a bit put off. I came to a conclusion that I had tried to avoid and that was to reinstall Windows (Win2k). I chose one of my discs with plenty of room and no residue of any Windows files. The reinstall was going ok until came to the part which entails a restart. Instead of a continuation with the installation I was taken to beginning again. After 3 attempts I just seemed to be going around in circles. I had never experienced much of a problem before with the Windows installation so I jumped to the possible conclusion that it might be my new DVD drive. So here I was with ext HD, printer, dvd drive and a 7 port hub (which I had had for about a fortnight) all not working, so I was feeling a bit low. Luckily I still had my old CD drive and I exchanged it with the CD drive and sure enough I had no problem with the Windows installation.
Although I had a clean install I wasn't looking forward to all the extra things you have to do like the service paks, programs etc. I did try installing the printer and it went ok without any trouble. At least one thing was working.
I had to contact a friend in Spain by Skype so I temporarily changed back to the other disc with all my stuff on. Just as an offchance I connected my ext HD, printer and hub. During the boot the usb devices were detected and when it asked for the drivers (non of them except the printer needed a CD) I just clicked on the Win2k disc which was still in the drive.Would you believe it, everything went ok from then on. So I have a fully functioning machine after all that trouble. I was just in time to contact the ext HD supplier that I didn't need a replacement after all. The only thing is my DVD drive which I will try and get replaced. It plays DVD's ok but corrupts the first two tracks of any CD I try to copy and it wont load Windows.
So that's my saga. Maybe the message is 'Don't give up'
Thanks again
Eddy

I appreciate that you took the time to post back with your experience to finally get your computer and peripherals working again.

Glad everything is working again.

Did the DVD drive come with any proprietal drivers?

Uninstalling it, rebooting and reinstalling it may fix it.

No I didn't get any drivers with it. I'll try it in again to see if it behaves any better.
Thanks
Eddy

Go to support at the manufacturer of the cd rom - see if there are any drivers (there should be) and any firmware updates.

Make sure the cd is set for your locality (it should be somewhere in the settings in the device manager). Be careful though - that setting can only be changed a limited number of times.

Thankyou Enthusiast. I'm sorry I'm a bit late but I have been away. Actually I have had a look at the DVD drive and on the very front (which I hadn't read) it says 'download update prog from www.drvupdate.com to keep the best performance' So I will do that. First though I would like to know that should I decide on the HD with my reinstalation of Win2k, can I copy all the service paks and install them instead of having to download them from the Windows site? They are in a folder called i386. Would I just make a copy of this folder? I ask because although things are sort of working I am getting a lot restarts at boot-up. Sometimes it can take over 15mins to get to the desktop and I am getting odd error messages about IE and modem sometimes switches off.
I have had to restart 3 times just to post this message.
Will be glad of help
Eddy

I could be wrong, but I believe you need to get the updates from Windows Updates for them to install properly.

If you decide to reinstall Windows you hopefully will have eliminated the spontaneous rebooting problem.

Hi - I am having the same exact problem with my external Seagate drive - also ST300003U2. But I have Windows XP Sp2. I tried the drive on 2 machines - same lack of response. Not detected in device mgr. It worked for months and all of my pictures are on it. Recent activity - my son installed an 11GB new PC game on it. The next day we noticed some beeping coming from it - it felt hot - so I shut the computer down and powered the drive off. Now when I reboot - it is not being noticed. I tried this several times. The light on the disk is on. I am not sure I understand the exact sequence that got Eddy's HD working but am willing to try anything so I do not lose about 6 months of pictures. Thanks for any help!

Hi, I am having the same issue as jeanne and eddy. I tried my HD under Windows XP on different machibes and it didn't work. Recently I bought a brand new machine provided with Windows Vista and I received the same response ('F is not accessible, this folder was moved or removed'). Yesterday I tried it again but the error message changed: 'F is not accessible, the unit is illegible or damage'.

Can anyone help please? This issue is driving me crazy.
Thanks!