External USB HD Not Getting Assigned Drive Letter In Vista Ultimate

[SmokeyMcPot]

I have a 500gb WD external USB hard drive that I have stored quite a bit of data on that currently will not get assigned a drive letter. When I open up the disk mgmt utility, I can see the drive and the partition is listed as Healthy. But when I right click on the drive it will not allow me to mark the partition as active, or assign it a drive letter. I have tried the drive on a Win7 machine, and have experienced the same issue.

So how do I get this drive to start acting properly without erasing all the data?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: External USB HD Not Getting Assigned Drive Letter In Vista Ultimate

Was it marked inactive somehow, or is this just a recent issue that makes it appear this way? Did you add this to an external box, or was it always external?

Have you tried partition programs like partition magic or Easus partition program (Free) to mark it active?

What board are you using

[SmokeyMcPot]

Re: External USB HD Not Getting Assigned Drive Letter In Vista Ultimate

I am using an Asus p5wdg2-ws professional mobo.

The drive is a WD "myBook"....not an external enclosure that you put a HD in, it already had the HD in there.

I simply did not have the drive plugged in for about 3 months, and then I plugged it in and this issue occurred.

I have not tried any partition programs yet because I fear they possibly could erase the data...but I will try this easus partition program you speak of if it will let me mark the drive Active. I will let you know if it worked or not.

[SmokeyMcPot]

Re: External USB HD Not Getting Assigned Drive Letter In Vista Ultimate

ahh crap....looks like easus partition's free version is 32bit only, 64 bit is not free. Any other free progz you could suggest for marking the drive as active in a 64bit environment?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: External USB HD Not Getting Assigned Drive Letter In Vista Ultimate

So what, you couldn't just install the 32bit version? Marking the disk active wont mess up the data.

You can actually do it with a windows install disk using diskpart, but not sure if that will show up since it is external USB? Here is how you would do it with Diskpart, see second section.
How to set active partition in Vista and XP

Boot from Vista install disk, then choose repair and on the repair options screen choose the DOS Prompt to get started using diskpart.

Do you have Hirens Boot CD? Plenty of tools on that there should be able to fix it

You may also be able to fix it by using disk management, and just shrink it by a few GB or so