External hard disc install. Its not going well!

I received a LaCie 2TB hard disc MAX and it refuses to show up anywhere. According to the PC its up and running and I can hear the two discs spinning up. Yet I cannot track it down to open it.

And according to the almost non-existant instructions that came with it, I have to access the drive to get the "Setup Assistant".

I'm no computer expert as you can probably tell. But I'm hoping someone here knows how I can dig myself out from under?

I'm running Windows XP with SP3. When I first connected it, I briefly got a dialogue box in the lower RHS of the screen saying new hardware had been detected, then it vanished.

I have set the two discs in "Safe" (RAID 1). The LaCie web site claims to have the software available for download, but when I click run on the download wizard, nothing happens!

Should I have stayed in bed today?

Have you tried re booting with it turned on & connected?

Lowner wrote in post #9526201
I received a LaCie 2TB hard disc MAX and it refuses to show up anywhere. According to the PC its up and running and I can hear the two discs spinning up. Yet I cannot track it down to open it.

And according to the almost non-existant instructions that came with it, I have to access the drive to get the "Setup Assistant".

I'm no computer expert as you can probably tell. But I'm hoping someone here knows how I can dig myself out from under?

I'm running Windows XP with SP3. When I first connected it, I briefly got a dialogue box in the lower RHS of the screen saying new hardware had been detected, then it vanished.

I have set the two discs in "Safe" (RAID 1). The LaCie web site claims to have the software available for download, but when I click run on the download wizard, nothing happens!

Should I have stayed in bed today?

Right click on "My Computer" then go to manage. Then go to disk management. You should see your disk(s) there (number depends on if it's "hardware" raid or software). Just format/initialize and you should be good.

basroil,

I've tried your suggestiom, but cannot find any "manage" in "My Computer"?

Cicopo, Yes I've tried it on, off, every combination I can think of to get it to plug and play, but still no joy.

What I don't understand is how the PC can tell me its working perfectly yet still not show it as "Drive F" or something?

Lowner wrote in post #9527026
basroil,

I've tried your suggestiom, but cannot find any "manage" in "My Computer"?

Cicopo, Yes I've tried it on, off, every combination I can think of to get it to plug and play, but still no joy.

What I don't understand is how the PC can tell me its working perfectly yet still not show it as "Drive F" or something?

Right click on "my computer" on the start menu and it should be about 1/3 the way down in the drop down menu.

Go to search and type in "disk management"

Russ,

No, it's not there. Not greyed out, just not there at all.

R.Perez,

Actually I have been digging an even deeper hole by diving into Disc Management. I first saw a red warning circle, with "Disc 1 Unknown 931.46 GB Not Initialised Unallocated". I then right clicked on it and Disc Management now shows it as follows: The red circle has gone, Not initialised has gone, it is shown now as Online but still unallocated.

And I still am unable to find the thing to get access to the LaCie Setup Assistant.

My old WD drive was simplicity itself to install. I plugged it in, turned it on, turned the PC on and up popped a new "Drive E". No fuss, no drama and its worked perfectly. So life does not need to be so complicated.

Lowner wrote in post #9527324
Russ,

No, it's not there. Not greyed out, just not there at all.

R.Perez,

Actually I have been digging an even deeper hole by diving into Disc Management. I first saw a red warning circle, with "Disc 1 Unknown 931.46 GB Not Initialised Unallocated". I then right clicked on it and Disc Management now shows it as follows: The red circle has gone, Not initialised has gone, it is shown now as Online but still unallocated.
.

See, EXACTLY what I was talking about. Just right click on that drive and format it. Use NTFS if on windows, FAT32 if on mac/will be sharing with macs.

Last night I managed to get it to accept a drive identification and asked it to format itself. It got as far as 3% and appeared to slow right down, so I let it run all night. This morning it was still at 3%, so I closed the device management dialogue.

But the good news is the drive is now acknowledged by the operating system! I accessed it only to be told that it was unformatted and would I like it to be? I said YES, knowing that means I've lost any preloaded LaCie software forever - Good riddance.

I now have a test underway. I am copying all my RAW files from drive E to the new RAID drive - it's taking a while! When I know it works, then I'll delete the originals. Only then will I move the remaining photo files across.

If this works I owe several rounds of drinks. I cannot believe how pathetic LaCie's "Quick Install Guide" is. The Install Assistant should be provided on a seperate CD at the very least, not on the drive. I'll never know whether having access to it would have helped or not.

A quick question while I wait for the test to complete:

My existing WD drive is identified as WD USB2 (E:, the new drive just has (F:. Can I change the identification to something like LC USB2 (F:, or am I now stuck with (F

You should be able to right click on it & rename it with a new volume label of 11 characters or less.

Lowner wrote in post #9531064
My existing WD drive is identified as WD USB2 (E:, the new drive just has (F:. Can I change the identification to something like LC USB2 (F:, or am I now stuck with (F

If you go to disk management, you can change the drive letter to anything you want. And then in management or just "my computer", you can click on rename.

Before you do anything drastic like delete old files, make sure the drives are working 100%.

My thanks to you all for helping me out here, particularly Basroil. It is now set up and working as I want it to be. Nothing automated, totally under my control.

I've moved 140 GB of image files over from my WD hard drive and everything works as planned. I did download some software from LaCie this morning (I'm still not sure why I could not do that yesterday), but took one look at it and dumped it straight in the bin, it seems designed to make a very simple task twenty times harder. Having the two new discs mirroring each other makes me feel a bit safer.

Sorry I am such a complete idiot with computers. I can press buttons and keys, but understanding what's happening behind the scenes is beyond me!

A quick update on La Cies response.

The usual stuff. Have you switched it on, is the USB cable OK, try it on another computer..........

Whereas as you guys knew immediately where I needed to be looking.

Lowner wrote in post #9542640
A quick update on La Cies response.

The usual stuff. Have you switched it on, is the USB cable OK, try it on another computer..........

Whereas as you guys knew immediately where I needed to be looking.

To their defense, they usually have to deal with complete idiots 95% of the time, so to save themselves 95% of the wasted time replying with actual information, they pass the same thing to everyone. If you sent them a second mail, they might actually start telling you the same things we did. We just (rightfully this time) assumed you were of (more or less) normal intelligence and just skipped to the less likely situations

basroil wrote in post #9543442
To their defense, they usually have to deal with complete idiots 95% of the time, so to save themselves 95% of the wasted time replying with actual information, they pass the same thing to everyone. If you sent them a second mail, they might actually start telling you the same things we did. We just (rightfully this time) assumed you were of (more or less) normal intelligence and just skipped to the less likely situations

Any company will pass out the generic "Plug in, turn on, watch loading screen, etc..." unless you specifically say exactly what you've done so far. It's generic protocol and usually people get in trouble if they do otherwise the first time around

Glad you figured it out though, I hate preloaded software, everyone beware of WD's smartware software. My dad's external hd halted his computer after a week lol (luckily being a techy, it was easy to say just format the damn thing).