Question : XP does not 'pickup' external USB HDD (any more)

I bought an external HDD (in a case) from Maplin. It has it's own external seprate power supply and connects to the PC via a USB cable.

All was well for the first couple of months. I only turned it on when I needed to backup or retrieve files. Otherwise, for the greater part, it has remeined turned off (but sometimes still connected to the PC).

In the meanwhile, I have installed and upgraded 3 different mobile telephone suites. Nokia's PC Suite, Nokia's OVI suite and Samsungs PC Suite at various times so that I can attach any of 3 different phones to the PC. A lot of the times, successful communication with the phones relied on a reboot of the PC.

Recently, I attached the external HDD and XP failed to pick it up. However, on careful examination, I did notice XP would initially pick up the drive and even assign it a drive letter. I could see this in Explorer. However, after only 2 seconds or so, it would disappear again.

My first reaction was to uninstall all the mobile telephone software and drivers as I thought it might have something to do with that. Still no luck.

Now, when I plug in the HDD, XP doesn't even acknowledge it.

I Googled this problem for several hours and stumbled upon a Microsoft recommendation to remove 2 settings from the registry. I did this but still no luck.

I ran SFC /SCANNOW but still no luck.

I am at a loss.

What diagnostics steps should I take to discovering why I'm having this problem?

And what can I do to fix it?
 

Answer : XP does not 'pickup' external USB HDD (any more)

I would recommend getting site-to-site between branches as well as that would optimise network flow.  It won't bring the network down, just remove your static routes before you enable the new VPN and the router will handle the routing (sounds silly) between sites.  With setting up a route through head office means you're involving your head office connections unnecessarily for traffic that could just flow directly between the branches.

If you have Exchange servers at the branches for example then you could set up connectors between the two branches and e-mails between users in the branches won't need to go through head office.  Same would apply for VoIP calls if you have VoIP system, and so on.

Let us know how you get on.