computer illiteracy

[shotoc]

hey computery people: i need help! i can't get my new computer to recognize me external hard drive. it's not a huge deal because last resort i can reverse-import stuff from my ipod, but there's some stuff (like papers from college and tv shows from itunes) that aren't on my ipod and i don't want to lose. the hard drive's company's website has

Comments

[in_water_writ]

A few questions:
What brand is the external hard drive?

Do you have a desktop or a laptop?

Do you know if the external HD is SATA or IDE?

[shotoc]

the external hard drive is a Maxtor 3200 and it's probably around 4 years old.
i have a laptop.
i do not know what your last sentence means!

hi/hope you're doing well/etc!

[in_water_writ]

Hi! I am doing well! I hope you are too, aside from computer issues! :)

Last question only matters if answer to question two was "desktop," but it wasn't.

It's really weird that this hard drive isn't compatible. A quick google search tells me you're not the only person with this problem, but that Seagate (formerly Maxtor) knows about it, and has no intention of supporting this hard drive for Windows 7. :/ Also, it looks like this particular drive has some issues even on systems it does have drivers for.

Is there a non-Win7 machine that you can hook your external up to just to doublecheck that it still reads correctly on pre-Windows 7 machines?

[shotoc]

well my brother has a mac, but i can see if it'll hook up to that once he's home in a week or two. my old laptop is dead dead dead, so that's out. the hard drive was working like last week. i guess i will have to buy a new hard drive, hook them both up to some computer (maybe my mom's at work?) and just transfer stuff that way. awesome.

thanks for being so helpful!