External USB Drives Not Recognizable in My Computer

After searching this forum and googling everything I could think of, I still can not find a solution.

I have a Compaq Presario V2000 (Yeah I know, probably not the best machine for Windows 7) and any type of USB drive I put into a USB port will not show up in My Computer but it does show up in Device Manager and Disk Management. However, my iPhone will connect just fine.

I have checked all the drivers and they are up to date. I went to the Western Digital (my non accessible External Hard Drive) site and there were no new drivers for the drive. I un installed all of the USB Root Hubs and then re installed them. I have basically tried everything thing that I found after googling.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm guessing when you use Disk Management and click on assigning a drive letter. There is already a drive letter assigned for the Drives. Otherwise you wouldn't see a drive letter under My Computer.

When I click on the external drive in Disk Management and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths" I receive this error:

The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer.

I've received this error before and tried refreshing and restarting the computer and nothing changes.

I have had this error before, but only when having problems with the drive.

Are you certain the drive is not damaged?.

Ohh and Welcome to the site saxplaya

Thanks for the welcome clifford!

And yea this drive is working. It showed up when I plugged it in while using Ubuntu and when I plugged it into my friends machine.

The problem isn't just with this external drive but with any type of external drive (flash drive, etc.)

Im not sure exactly what maybe the cause of your problem. The only other thing I can think of is maybe the USB drivers need to be updated. It might even be possible that Windows installed incorrect drivers for the USB controller.

Have you tried the "Intel Chipset Installation Utility" from this site - Compaq Presario V2000 Notebook PC series under "Operating System - Enhancements and QFEs" section

I downloaded the chipset installation utility and ran it but received this error:

The Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility requires a supported chipset platform running on a supported operating system. Check the System Requirements section of the Readme.TXT file for more information.

It looks like i have to be running XP or lower for this to be working...