Cannot access hard drive when pluged into usb port

This has been an ongoing priblem for me for several months. I haven't been
able to find a solution. It started when I bought a "pen drive" (512 mb)
which I gave away, and now a Toshiba 2.5" 80 gig hard drive in a USB
enclosure.
I pluged it in initially and it was recognized, had a spot in device manager
under disk drives as "Toshiba MK8025GAS USB Device"
and in the "Universal Serial Bus Controller" heading as USB Mass Storage
Device.
BUT _not_ in My Computer!
I cannot access this drive.
Can anybody help???
Thanks, Ron

In news:B9CB3FC1-91BF-41C6-9957-E42A6666DAE3@microsoft.com,
RON <rppare(remove this)@comcast.net> wrote:
> This has been an ongoing priblem for me for several months.
> I
> haven't been able to find a solution. It started when I
> bought a
> "pen drive" (512 mb) which I gave away, and now a Toshiba
> 2.5" 80 gig
> hard drive in a USB enclosure.
> I pluged it in initially and it was recognized, had a spot in
> device
> manager under disk drives as "Toshiba MK8025GAS USB Device"
> and in the "Universal Serial Bus Controller" heading as USB
> Mass
> Storage Device.
> BUT _not_ in My Computer!
> I cannot access this drive.
> Can anybody help???
> Thanks, Ron

If you've been dealing with this problem for several months
then you may already have checked on the following, but I'll
pass it along anyway.

Start -> Run enter diskmgmt.msc in the Open box.
Note: You can also access Disk Management by right clicking My
Computer and selecting Manage from the menu that drops down.
Is your USB drive listed in the lower pane?
You may have to partition and format this drive.

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows
XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

Good luck

Nepatsfan