My PC won't recognize my external through My Computer

Live forum: http://forum.freeipodguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=60655

Jams44

25-04-2007 18:34:30

Anybody know how to add an external hard drive to the boot sequence in the BIOS? I understand the master and slave drives, I'm just not sure how to set that stuff up. Any help would be great!

moviemadnessman

25-04-2007 18:48:36

You might need to update your BIOS ... otherwise, there should be an option in there for it to boot from a USB device under the boot section of the BIOS.

Jams44

25-04-2007 19:43:08

Thanks one last question, I installed Ubuntu on this drive and for some reason the drive will no longer appear under My COmputer. It's recogized by the PC I just can;t find access to it. Anyone know the solution?

ILoveToys

25-04-2007 20:41:26

[quotead4417e3f3="Jams44"]Thanks one last question, I installed Ubuntu on this drive and for some reason the drive will no longer appear under My COmputer. It's recogized by the PC I just can;t find access to it. Anyone know the solution?[/quotead4417e3f3]

There isn't a good solution to be able to use that drive through windows. The reason you can't see it is Ubuntu probably installed on the hdd using the ext3 file system (a linux file system), whereas windows will only recognize NTFS or FAT, so under My Computer in windows it won't show up as a drive like you are used to.

dmorris68

25-04-2007 21:07:07

[quotee8e88f3fc2="ILoveToys"][quotee8e88f3fc2="Jams44"]Thanks one last question, I installed Ubuntu on this drive and for some reason the drive will no longer appear under My COmputer. It's recogized by the PC I just can;t find access to it. Anyone know the solution?[/quotee8e88f3fc2]

There isn't a good solution to be able to use that drive through windows. The reason you can't see it is Ubuntu probably installed on the hdd using the ext3 file system (a linux file system), whereas windows will only recognize NTFS or FAT, so under My Computer in windows it won't show up as a drive like you are used to.[/quotee8e88f3fc2]
^^^ What he said.

Ubuntu uses the ext3 filesystem (by default). You can't natively access a non-Microsoft filesystem with Windows. What you should have done was divide the drive into partitions, installing Ubuntu on one (or more) partition, and leaving one partition formatted as NTFS. Or FAT32 if you want reliable write access to it from Linux, however XP/2000 will only format 32GB max on FAT32 partitions.