Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
Name: Cody (by kerodude3058)
hi, i got an external hd. used to work great, but now when i plug it in nothing happens, not even recognized. the drive box lights up and i can feel the drive vibrating but it is not even recognized when i plug it in. i tried a diff usb cable but the no luck. also tried switching usb ports as well as trying other stuff int he usb ports. Usb ports are working fine. Any ideas short of opening it up and looking for a loose ide cable?
Try going to the Disk Manager and see if it's displayed there.
Control Panel > Administrative tools > Computer Management > Disk Management.
If it's not shown there, go to Action > 'Rescan disks' and see if that causes it to be recognized.Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0 
I've seen more than a dozen people report drives (both external and internal) suddenly disappear from their XP system. Nobody, as far as I know, has ever come back with a fix. I had it happen to me. I ended up restoring XP from an image backup and it resolved the problem. Other people have moved the drive to another system as a slave and the data was OK.
What letter was assigned to the drive when it was working?
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0
it was E:, i will try the restore back though...can hurt. Yes i tried off and on multiple times. i tried even testing the power adapter with a volt meter to make sure it was reading correct voltage...whats the liklyhood its a loose ide? If the ide was disconnected but the power was connected it would spin and light up but not be recognized by windows right? I also just defragged my c (win xp) drive cuz it was 29% which is not good. (opps i forgot to for a while)....I'll post back if i get it working.
THANKS!
0
I guess it could be a loose IDE connector, but I've never seen one come loose. I guess it could even be a bad drive.
But my suspicion is that the OS has just lost it and can't get it back.
I would like you to try something, if you don't mind. Would you go to the drive manager and start the procedure to change a drive letter of one of your drives. Don't actually do a change, but just see what drives come up as available and see if E: is one of them. One fellow tried it when he had this problem and there were 'no' drive letters available.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0
i have a usb thumb drive that as soon as i plug it in is recognized as E: as well, if used together in the past one would bump to f: but now by them selves the thumb drive is e: and the external is not recognized. I tried what you suggested but e: is available, thanks for the ideas though. I will bring it to one of the school computer tomorow and see if it is the drive or my comp screwing up.
0
Ok, thanks for trying that kerodude3058. Good luck and if you would post back with whatever you find out, I would really appreciate it!
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0
ok, hears the upshot, did not work on school computers, so i put the drive in my friend's external enclosure still didn't work...put it in his desktop, made sure jumper was correct and still the bios did not even recognize...i guess the drive just crapped out for no apparent reason. Thanks for the ideas though. I do have a 5 year warranty so i should get a new one free, but the 300 gigs of data will take a while to replace.
thanks,
Cody
0
Jeez, 300gbs of data. That's really a shame Kerodude.
You could try a file recovery program like Getdataback or Ontrack's 'Easy Recovery Pro', but it's kinda a gamble.
But it was really nice of you to post back, Thank's a lot!!!
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0
On second thought, if the bios doesn't see it, I doubt if those programs will work.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
0
lol thanks for the ideas, but i'm S.O.L....worst thing is, it take 3 weeks to replace, so i cant start replaceing data for 3 weeks. o well
I JUST LOST 287 gigs entertainment! F
0  |
 |
 |
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
