I just re-installed Windows ME on an eMachine 733i computer (it's
about 4 years old).  I'm trying to connect an Acom external hard drive
to the USB port.  The computer recognizes that I've plugged in some
USB equipment, and Norton SystemWorks 2004 recognizes that there is an
extra 120 GB hard drive.  But Windows ME isn't assigning it a drive
letter or giving me any way of accessing the external drive.  What do
I need to do?

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Request for Question Clarification by lot-ga on 10 Oct 2004 02:05 PDT

Dear dpwiener

Is the drive a new drive, and is it formatted?

regards

lot-ga

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Clarification of Question by dpwiener-ga on 10 Oct 2004 09:25 PDT

The hard drive is formatted and is about half full.

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Clarification of Question by dpwiener-ga on 12 Oct 2004 11:35 PDT

I contacted Acom technical support, and was told that Windows
Millennium can't handle NTSC-formatted hard drives.  The only solution
is to copy off everything on my external hard drive; reformat it so
that Win ME can recognize it; and then copy all the data back on.  I'm
not willing to do that, so I'll just have to live with the present
limitations.

Since my Win ME computer is networked to a computer with Win XP, I can
copy data to and from the external hard drive using the Win XP
computer as an intermediary.  It's mickey mouse and inefficient, but
doable.

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

It may be that you need to flash your bios. Certainly many older
machines need a bios update to recognise larger internal disks and the
same might just be true for externals. It kinda makes sense because
even though it?s a USB, it still has to be integrated into the system
and not simply recognised. As you may well know, the bios / operating
system integration is a wee bit impenetrable. I may be wrong --
perhaps worth checking out though.

Best

Had a think and remembered that ME doesn?t handle USB all that well.
Many devices need a driver to be installed. This comes with the device
or download if you don?t have it.

Best

get windows xp.

me sucks

Yes, ME sucks, and I would greatly prefer XP.  But this is a secondary
computer.  My mother bought a new one because this one was full of
spyware and other crap, and she needed a new computer anyway.  So I
decided to try to resurrect this computer rather than just junking it,
by re-installing Windows ME.  I don't want to put a lot of money into
the computer(such as by buying XP), but at the very least I want it to
be able to communicate with an external hard drive.