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New laptop works fine with external drive; old one does not.
May 1, 2010
6:54 PM
6:54 PM
Locutus
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February 19, 2009
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After seeing the other USB related post, I have a question to ask.
I need to use an external hard drive on my old laptop, but whenever I plug it in it appears in Computer and says "Local Disc (E:)". It's supposed to do that. However, if you then try to open it, it complains that it's not formatted. It offers to format it.
It works fine on my new laptop.
Does anyone know why?
Oh, the site that was :(
May 1, 2010
7:18 PM
7:18 PM
karen
Washington, DC Metro Area
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What file system is the external drive formatted with? Are you sure it is compatible with the OS of the old laptop?
Can you bring up a cmd prompt and run checkdisk on it? Or the windows Disk Manager thingy and run some diagnostics on it?
May 1, 2010
7:42 PM
7:42 PM
Wheezer
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Yup, what Karen said.
I immediately thought the external drive is FAT32 and the computer is NTFS or the other way around. (or whatever those initials are supposed to be. you know what I mean)
Of course, you being the Guru Locutus, I bet you already thought of that… 
May 1, 2010
8:57 PM
8:57 PM
Locutus
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CHKDSK reports that it's RAW…
I just had an AhHa! moment: It's in exFAT whatever that is.
Just Googled it: it's like FAT but better cause it lets you have larger files and bigger hard drives.
The old laptop is my Dell Inspiron with XP and the new one is my Acer Aspire with 7.
Just installed the driver for XP for exFAT. Not going to restart now, but I think that was the issue.
Thanks!
Oh, the site that was :(
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