Desperate Darlene1 miight have to get a job.

[Darlene1]

I am here a lot sooner than I would have thought. I have to hurry up and type because I keep getting a C+++ error and it closes down. Here is my problem.

I have a new computer HP that I bought in Nov. because I didn't want Vista on my new computer. It's a HP Pavilion Windows Media Center although I don't have the media center connected to my TV.(who wants to watch TV sitting at a computer) Well I had it installed in March 2007 and everything was going pretty well. It's a duel core, 400 GB and more than 20,000 memory.
I wanted to buy a good one because it will probably be my last. Well it had a bay slot on the front that you could buy more memory and just slide it in. It's called HP Personal Media Drive. There were 4 removable disks on my computer, so it could hold enough. I went for the big one, 500GB. To hold me till I croak. I printed all of the directions and followed them astutely. When I went to look at my new disk in the computer, it wasn't there. In fact when I was looking around all of the removable drives disappeared, G, H, I and J.Gone
I am on a high speed cable that just turned from Adelphia to Comcast.
Well somewhere I was checking said if this did not work to call my IP, so I called Comcast.
Now he told me I would have to get a router and have it installed. This didn't sound right to me but I am self taught and don't know much, so it could be true.
When I added another drive on my last computer I didn't have to get a router. Why would I have to on this one.
Does anyone know if this is what I have to do or is there something else maybe. This little endeavor is going to cost more than the removable hard drive, I might have to go back to work. Yikes!
I am the only one that uses this computer, we have no home network.
I hope someone here comes up with something this is so frustrating. Hey your site didn't shut down on me yet.
Oh Yeah! I have a new windows XP sp2 dual core. Intell V//V.
Desperate Darlene1

[Darlene1]

What did I do wrong, every time I came here I couldn't look around, It kept shutting down on me. So I had to write very fast. Did I put it in the wrong spot? Sorry! Does this mean I'm banished?

[caperjack]

Were to start!! .
you say you wanted to get a good one ,? so why did you buy a HP!! and why did you but media center if you didn't plan on using it ,
the new harddrive may need to be formatted first before you put in the bay.

The cable guy is wrong telling you need a router because of the drive ,he may be telling you if you do have more than one computer in the home you would need a router to network them .

[Suspishio]

...the new harddrive may need to be formatted first before you put in the bay....

Well, you'd have to put it into the bay to format it.

Anyway, we need a bit more info. For example, when you go into Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager; is there anything listed that has an exclamation mark against it? What does the expanded Disk Drives item say? What does it say about the USB controllers?

On the removable drive in question, is the USB socket at the back (which mates with it's counterpart in the bay) in any way distorted?

If your USB ports are not reported in errror (the exclamnation mark), have you tried connecting the drive to a USB port using the supplied USB cable?

[fatihpiristine]

Why did you buy "HP" ?? worse one on the market.

check your bios / peripheral devices / usb...set them only "enable" mode. even they r active now.

and under windows hardware conf. usb host controller... set it to do not cut the power when idle

[Darlene1]

Thank all of you for answering my post. My HP Personal Media Drive was already formatted, so that was not the problem. After trying some of the other things you suggested and none of them working. I thought I better call HP service, I had 30 days for a free help call.

After 3 hours on the phone with India and trying more things, I was ready to send it back for a new one. He finally had me connect it outside of the bay with the wires that came with it and it recognized it. So it was the bay that was broken or not connecting with the back of the media drive. I guess I had the option of packing up my tower and sending it back to get fixed, but I decided that was too much trouble and just accepted that it would sit on top of the tower.

Once again I would like to thank all of you that tried to help, as to why I got the HP computer and Personal Media Drive, It was what I had before and it lasted 6 years and was just getting too slow when I tried to multi task. It was registering 100 CPU's and I figured I needed more memory. I had already added 2 more sticks of rambus ram and another drive and was told it wouldn't take any more.

It is now my Daughter-in-laws and I am trying to teach her what little I know.

Once again Thank You and I am glad I found daniweb, and I didn't need to get a router.

Darlene1

[Darlene1]

As to why I got the Media Center (don't laugh) I wanted the volume control on the keyboard.
Darlene 1

[Suspishio]

Well done, Darlene1. BTW, the Volume control on the keyboard comes with nearly every keyboard that can attach to any PC!

Anyway, it looks like India advised you to try what I suggested (use the cable) and the result is a working compromise.