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Storage: External hard drive not recognised. Please help :(
This worked for me
by Ruanaidh - 10/17/06 11:10 PM In reply to: One check did it. by daleheI am not a Technician. I just played around with the hardware and everything is now working fine.
1/ I turned off my computer at the powerpoint.
2/ I attached the Maxtor II hard-drive to the USB port of the non-powered computer and turned the Maxtor on.
3/ I then turned the computer on at the powerpoint and started it up
4/ Voila! Windows recognised the 'new' hardware and I was off and running.
I can't explain how this worked I just know that it did when all else failed.
I'm having trouble too.
by dizzlledogg - 6/25/08 10:26 AM In reply to: This worked for me by RuanaidhHi! So im having that problem + did what you said, but i can't get the drive to turn on when it's off. i held it for 20 seconds one time. it'll only turn when you log into an account, but the light is on for literally 1 second and goes off. then i see the popup on my desktop that there are no drivers for this. my biggest problem is that this is my dad's 250gb maxtor external hard drive, and i'm screwed if he finds out. if it helps, i was moving my whole itunes library to it, which is over 88 gb, but fir on both drives. then moving it onto a different external hard drive (my 160gb western digital) and then it went downhill about halfway through the second process.any tips?
my WD external hard drive is not being recognized by my pc
by shlomohal - 2/17/09 8:05 PM In reply to: This worked for me by Ruanaidhhi i need help, my externel WD 2 TB hard drive is not being recognized by my computer, and when it does you don't see anything on it, it's empty both the truth is it has about 700 gb on it, and when you check how mutch space it is still available on the hard drive, it is 0 bytes that means when you go to properties the hard drive doesn't have the name on top, and the whole capacity is blue like the hard drive is completly full, but by the used space is written 0 bytes and on free space is written 0 bytes and the capacity is 0 bytes,.
And ones it did came up that the hard drive has used space 700 gb, and ones the hard opend for like 2-3 minutes and than it closed again and than the pc will not recognize the externel hard, till i plug out the power from the hard drive wait a couple of minutes and than whan i plug it beck in it will recogineze it for about five minutes, both when i open it it is empty, both i know that it is not empty becouse it recognized it ones for 2 minutes and i saw that the info is still in their, I tryed changing the usb port it didn't help, booting the pc, uninstalling the hub and reinstall it, power out power on, again changing pc, so if somebody could help me out please do thanks
WD external hard drive not recognized by laptop
by im_patient - 3/23/09 7:27 AM In reply to: my WD external hard drive is not being recognized by my pc by shlomohalThanks shlomohal for posting this. I would have said the same thing. Only difference is that I have a 320GB WD Passport which holds about 300GB of data.
Before this happened, I plugged my WD into the USB port. Then I clicked and dragged one file (mp3) onto the Windows Media Player. Then my laptop froze. All open applications went "Not responding". I clicked on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon, but nothing happened. After about 20 minutes, I pulled the USB cable, then restarted my computer. After that, I pretty much experienced what you explained. A few hours later, I could still see my files, but cannot use any file. But now (4th day) my WD just doesn't appear when I plug it in.
Help!!!
issue with samsung 1TB hdd in a usb 2.0 HDD external box
by adhdam - 8/9/09 11:40 PM In reply to: This worked for me by RuanaidhWhen i originally hooked up my HDD it worked, but after a few hours it stopped working, it is seen in my device manager as fine, but not viewable in the disk management, and i can see it in my computer but it will not allow me to create anything on the drive, it says something about file not specified. this is on an XP machine where i already have a WD 500GB HDD working fine attached via usb also, i have hooked it to my vista machine and it worked fine, but when i bring it back to my XP machine nothing, now i have tried reformatting with vista, have uninstalled all my usb ports and also reinstalled my chipset, anyone have any other ideas of what i can try. my last resort will be to install it into my machine and give up on the external case but this will defeat the purpose of why i purchased it, please help 
Read this discussion and consider.
by R. Proffitt
- 8/10/09 4:23 AM
In reply to: issue with samsung 1TB hdd in a usb 2.0 HDD external box by adhdam
All the great ideas are here. Also you buried your plea for help.
Update on my recent 'fix'
by Ruanaidh - 10/18/06 12:26 AM In reply to: One check did it. by daleheI disconnected the Maxtor and tried it again and it failed to work. So in the meantime I found an alternative power supply lead, plugged it into the maxtor and it is now being recognised by windows. It would seem that in my circumstance the problem was power related. Good Luck
I've just had the same problem, and here's what it was:!!
by obsessed - 5/20/05 6:27 AM In reply to: External hard drive not recognised. Please help :( by jamhaySometimes, the external encasement connections fail. I had an external drive that suddenly lost connection and wasn't recognized by My Computer or the Disk Management. I purchased a new external case, took out the hard drive and connected it to the new case, and voila! Instant recognition, and my 100G of data was still there and safe. I have a question for Bob, if you're still following this! Bob, how DO you suggest to backup if you say that hard drives are a bad idea? I have had just as many problems with DVDs that "fail" and suddenly lose data. I have followed discussions about this as well, data that people thought were on their DVDs "forever" and suddenly all is lost, or the drive won't read the DVD, etc. Is there a REAL backup solution?
Bob's backup.
by R. Proffitt - 5/20/05 6:42 AM
In reply to: I've just had the same problem, and here's what it was:!! by obsessed
I have many levels of backup. Sadly it does take time to do this so I fit it inbetween and as part of my PC usage.
1. CDRW/DVDRW disks contain a set of what I need to move to a new machine. NO OS or applications are needed since I have the install CDs plus those have a copy.
A total of 3 sets are rotated and as some media fails, it gets replaced. This is cheap compared to just a few years ago.
2. Next in line is an USB hard disk. Nice for quick backups that I don't want or need to refresh that DVDRW set (I used to use CDRW, but DVDRW is just so many less disks.)
3. A smaller set of files is sent off to my mini-server that is running OpenSSH or a secure shell server. This contains my core works that I can't lose and photos.
4. Further down the list are my set of OS CDs, applications CDs. All the originals and CDKEYS are in a package far away from the computers. A copy of these are in my recovery kit. I use my recovery kit first and if one of these CDRs fail, I can go get the original to duplicate it again and refresh the recovery. This happened once so the system works.
5. The take it with me plan. I recently acquired an 1 GB USB memory key. On it are the items that I don't want to lose if I was away from home and the home vanished. While I can't carry my photos there, key works and such are on it.
Some may consider this extreme but they may not have suffered a total wipeout yet. Or watched others lose it all.
Bob
Bob's Backup
by euspos - 1/20/06 3:35 PM In reply to: Bob's backup. by R. Proffitt
Bob,
Very nice setup.
I have somewhat of the same approach, but do not use any "plastic" media, only hard drives.
Have 2x250 GB drives inside PC case for quick and dirty backups (no mirroring but use SyncToy to backup everything that is important - inclusing all written down "keys" in Excel sheets). Will soon add another 300GB drive and make these 2x250 drives as a RAID I.
All this data is mirrored about once a week onto my wife's computer, in a different room, where it lands onto her D-drive (2nd disk).
Outside of this, we have 2x80 GB USB drives that are stored in the basement and one 120GB hard drive that is stored at the bank in a safe deposit box. About once every month, that drive is taken home to be "re-freshed".
Is this anal? Possibly so, but I did have a hard drive crash (on a laptop) in 2004 and after that I rather go a bit too far since storage today is cheap.
Microsoft's SyncToy is also a pretty handy and fast tool for setting up small backup routines. And, it's free!
Can't recognize an external USB hard drive--a solution
by jmmd - 8/28/05 12:21 PM In reply to: I've just had the same problem, and here's what it was:!! by obsessedHad the same problem with a generic USB drive case from TigerDirect with an old WD hard drive inside it. It was being recognized only intermittently which was making me crazy. Some days XP saw it, some days no.
Removing the USB connector from the USB hub, and then putting it into a new different port on the hub did not help the computer recognize the external USB drive.
But disconnecting the external drive from its power supply, and then disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable at the external drive (with the computer on) led to XP SP2 seeing it and assigning a drive letter in Explorer. I don’t remember if I reconnected the power supply or the USB cable at the external drive first, but it was nice to see it back in action.
This worked for me too.
by catbait1 - 8/26/07 11:13 PM In reply to: Can't recognize an external USB hard drive--a solution by jmmdWow, I'd tried about everything and then used your sequence. Essentially, turn off case, disconnect P/S and disconnect USB cable. I then plugged in USB cable, plugged power supply back into the back of the enclosure, turned it on and my computer found it. As usual, it was on my network "F" drive, but that was an easy drive letter change.
Same issue with SP 2
by abeers - 9/13/05 10:45 AM In reply to: External hard drive not recognised. Please help :( by jamhayI am having the same problem with a LaCie 250 gig drive. It does seem to be related to SP2.
Just to take this to another level of weirdness, Mac OSX mounts this same drive and regognizes the files eventhough it can't do anything with them as they were written on a Windows PC
same issue with Firewire drive
by crontegy - 9/17/05 10:24 AM In reply to: External hard drive not recognised. Please help :( by jamhayi can't see it but when i restart the red light flashes like its trying to do something but nothing happens. i have a feeling its case and i have 2 of them so i am probably going switch them and see if it works. who knows tho. will the red light flash if its the case?
any help much appreciated.
running XP
The lesson I learned.
by R. Proffitt - 9/17/05 11:01 AM
In reply to: same issue with Firewire drive by crontegy
Use USB 2.0 on the PC and Firewire on the Apple for hard disks. It's a small lesson, but so far the lesson seems to be repeating too often.
And yes, it should work but after dozens of failures why should I try to fix an apparent industry issue?
Bob
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