Help! Unable to locate removable Drive F:

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Rick W. - 10 Mar 2005 11:47 GMT

System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM

Picked up a Polaroild PDC3030 digital camera. Loaded necessary software as
per the manufacturer's instruction. Upon reboot, the removable drive cannot
be found in My Computer, but can be located in Administrative Tools >> Disk
Management where it is reported as Drive F: It is also visible in the Device
Manager under Disk Drives, Storage Devices and USB. The techs at Polaroid
state the camera was installed correctly. For the time being, antivirus and
firewalls have been disabled. The computer is not on a network. Polaroid's'
tech support insist I install Windows XP SP2 - I fail to see how this will
remedy the situation, the packaging states the camera will operate on
various OS's from Windows 98 to Windows XP.

My Question(s):

Is there a way to force the drive to become visible in My Computer? If so,
please elaborate.

Is there a way to map or share a removable drive?

Will Windows XP SP2 correct this abnormality?

Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Reply to this Message

Rick - 10 Mar 2005 11:52 GMT

I'm not familiar with that camera, but is the Removable Storage
service started on the machine?

> System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Reply to this Message

Gymn Bob - 10 Mar 2005 13:55 GMT

People report starnge XP happennings with hardware from everywhere. This
would be very typical of the things I have heard. SP2 just may fix it.

> System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Reply to this Message

Kevin Weaver - 10 Mar 2005 14:55 GMT

Install SP-2 If it does not work, Remove IT! Simple enough.

> People report starnge XP happennings with hardware from everywhere. This
> would be very typical of the things I have heard. SP2 just may fix it.
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
>>
>> Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Reply to this Message

CSM1 - 10 Mar 2005 16:08 GMT

> System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM
>
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Read the instructions in the camera manual for downloading pictures on page
40.

Try plugging in the camera and turn on in the playback mode. Also check the
camera settings for the USB mode for downloading, it there is a PC control
mode and it is selected, you will not see the removable drive.

Look in Windows Explorer (NOT My computer) for the removable drive.

Try Start>Run. Type Command<enter>. In the command window type dir F: and
see what you get. If the removable drive is really F:, you should get a
folder listing for the camera.
You should at least get something like the following. (My removable drive is
I: and I am logged) as CARL).

Microsoft(R) Windows DOS
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1990-2001.

D:\DOCUME~1\CARL>DIR i:
Volume in drive I has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

Directory of I:\

07/20/2003 06:09 PM <DIR> DCIM
0 File(s) 0 bytes
1 Dir(s) 64,733,184 bytes free

I suggest that you try removing the Polaroid Software. Then plug in the
Camera to USB and see if Windows XP SP1 will find the removable drive. Look
in Windows Explorer (NOT My computer) for the removable drive.

Windows XP has support built in for removable drives. The Polaroid software
may be interfering with the normal XP Drivers.

Link to the Polaroid PDC 3030 camera manuals and software.
http://www.polaroid-digital.com/site.php?cid=14&lid=1&id=4&pid=8&serid=1

Signature

CSM1
http://www.carlmcmillan.com
--

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Gym@Bob - 10 Mar 2005 16:17 GMT

A very common mistake under many Windows versions is plugging the device in
the computer and letting it build an "ignore it" driver before installing
the drivers needed. They aren't required at that point anymore and never get
installed working. Usually the instructions state "Do not plug in your
device until this installation is complete"

> > System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM
> >
[quoted text clipped - 62 lines]
> Link to the Polaroid PDC 3030 camera manuals and software.
> http://www.polaroid-digital.com/site.php?cid=14&lid=1&id=4&pid=8&serid=1

Reply to this Message

CSM1 - 10 Mar 2005 19:06 GMT

In which case you go into Device manager and delete it. It will be marked
with either Yellow or Red. Only shows when the device is connected.

Signature

CSM1
http://www.carlmcmillan.com
--

>A very common mistake under many Windows versions is plugging the device in
> the computer and letting it build an "ignore it" driver before installing
[quoted text clipped - 80 lines]
>> Link to the Polaroid PDC 3030 camera manuals and software.
>> http://www.polaroid-digital.com/site.php?cid=14&lid=1&id=4&pid=8&serid=1

Reply to this Message

Gym Bob - 10 Mar 2005 19:15 GMT

It doesn't show up under win98 or 2000.

> In which case you go into Device manager and delete it. It will be marked
> with either Yellow or Red. Only shows when the device is connected.
[quoted text clipped - 83 lines]
> >>
> >> Link to the Polaroid PDC 3030 camera manuals and software.

http://www.polaroid-digital.com/site.php?cid=14&lid=1&id=4&pid=8&serid=1

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Rick W. - 11 Mar 2005 02:19 GMT

Thank you to all who replied, the problem was traced
to a trojan_loader type virus that had not been detected by F-Secure.
Installed NAV and Windows XP SP2 - F: drive is now present, works perfectly.
Thanks again!

> System: Intel Pentium P4 - 2.53, GHz 1GB Ram. OS: Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM
>
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> Thank you for your time, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Reply to this Message