External Hard Drive Is Not Accessible

About a week ago I purchase a SimpleTech 320 GB External Hard Drive. It worked fine on my old laptop (a Toshiba Satellite). I bought a new laptop yesterday a Sony Vaio and now when I plug in my HD, it will show up on my computer but when I try to click it to open the files it says "Location is Not Available. H:/ is not accessible. Access is denied." The weird thing is if I go to search and search for the title of a song that's saved on my HD, it will find it, let me click it and play it. But when I try to open the drive itself to look at or use any of the content itself or move a file (so that I can transfer it to my MP3 player etc.) it won't let me. My laptop operates on Vista if that makes any difference.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Did the drive come with a driver disk? Also, go to Start>Run put in compmgmt.msc and hit enter. When the new window opens up, go to disk management. Look to the right and see if it is listed there and has a drive letter assigned to it. If it is there without a drive letter than right click on that space and there is an option to assign one.
Mark

About a week ago I purchase a SimpleTech 320 GB External Hard Drive. It worked fine on my old laptop (a Toshiba Satellite). I bought a new laptop yesterday a Sony Vaio and now when I plug in my HD, it will show up on my computer but when I try to click it to open the files it says "Location is Not Available. H:/ is not accessible. Access is denied." The weird thing is if I go to search and search for the title of a song that's saved on my HD, it will find it, let me click it and play it. But when I try to open the drive itself to look at or use any of the content itself or move a file (so that I can transfer it to my MP3 player etc.) it won't let me. My laptop operates on Vista if that makes any difference.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, thanks for the response.
I followed your instructions but when I right click the drive without a letter the only option listed is "help" and following the help instructs me to do what I just did but states that there should be an option that says "initialize disk" but there isn't.

The hd came with a disk but all that is on the disk is a guide to using the HD, no software or install information or anything.

Did the drive come with a driver disk? Also, go to Start>Run put in compmgmt.msc and hit enter. When the new window opens up, go to disk management. Look to the right and see if it is listed there and has a drive letter assigned to it. If it is there without a drive letter than right click on that space and there is an option to assign one.
Mark

I quoted incorrectly but I was obviously replying to you and not myself garmanma lol

Click Start, click Control Panel, click System. On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager and look for any yellow exclamation points by the drive
Mark
Also make sure you're logged in as administrator. Do you by chance use Norton's GoBack?
http://www.geekzone.co.nz

http://www.computerhope.com
http://www.microsoft.com

Click Start, click Control Panel, click System. On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager and look for any yellow exclamation points by the drive
Mark
Also make sure you're logged in as administrator. Do you by chance use Norton's GoBack?
http://www.geekzone.co.nz

http://www.computerhope.com
http://www.microsoft.com

Hmm I tried that and there were no yellow exclamation points anywhere. And no I do not use Norton's GoBack.

Does the drive have it's own power cord or is it powered through the USB cable? Are there any other USB devices plugged in?
Mark

Whoops

Mark

Edit: double post

Does the drive have it's own power cord or is it powered through the USB cable? Are there any other USB devices plugged in?
Mark

It has it's own power cord and there are no other USB devices plugged in.

I had a friend who was more familiar with Vista take a look at it and they corrected the issue for me. Thank your for all your help though!

If you know what your friend did to correct the problem, would you post it here, please, so that it could benefit others (like me, for example )?

Thanks!

Hi I also have a SimpleTech Simple Drive 320gb external and just recently ran into a similar problem. My computer cannot recognize the drive and displays the message "E:\ is not accessible, Access is denied." I am also using Vista, but have no idea how to fix this problem. I have tried restarting the computer, but it fails to recognize the external. However odly enough I can access photos when I change the desktop background. But clicking on the letter drive itself in 'My Computer' gives me the same error message. Help!