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| Thread ID: 67442 | 2006-03-28 02:17:00 | External Hard Drive Problems | djzenjen (10076) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 441348 | 2006-03-28 02:17:00 | I bought an external hard drive (200G) about 3 months ago and used it on my Dell Inspiron 5100, and sometimes on my desktop as well. It has been working fine until just a few days ago. I never take it anywhere or move it that much. It usually just sits in one spot. I bought a Dell 9400, and the computer will not recognize the drive. It simply doesn't see it at all. I tried plugging the external drive into my desktop and now it won't work on that computer either! I don't know what happened, so I am hoping someone can help me out. The drive is from Maxtor I think, but I can't find the model # or box anywhere. There is also nothing written on the drive itself other than "3.5 HDD Enclosure". (sigh) Any suggestions as to what may of happened? |
djzenjen (10076) | ||
| 441349 | 2006-03-28 02:34:00 | Is it a USB2 drive (probably is) ? What OS are you running on the various machines ? If Windows XP do they all have Service Pack 1 or 2 installed. When you remove the drive from a machine do you either shut the machine down or "Safely remove the hardware" (Little icon with an arrow pointing to the right on the right hand side of the task bar). |
gcarmich (10068) | ||
| 441350 | 2006-03-28 03:02:00 | DOH - arrow on the icon points left not right. | gcarmich (10068) | ||
| 441351 | 2006-03-28 03:23:00 | By the way, with the exception of the enclosure there's probably nothing special about your hard drive, so you can troubleshoot it like any other hard drive. Assuming it's a USB drive, some USB disk enclosure have two USB cables, one for communication and one for power. Are there any drive activity lights, sound or vibrations? Assuming it's not under warranty it's pretty easy to usually easy open a case. Makes sure it's completely unplugged. A small screwdriver, or even a jeweller's screwdriver from Dick Smith, should do the trick. Of course, check the connections, and try again. If it doesn't work, you can remove the hard drive from the enclosure, and temporarily mount it in your PC. There are many fine tutorials about mounting a second hard drive in your PC, uncluding here on the forum. If it's a laptop drive, unlikely, you could try a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE convertor, again from Dick Smith. |
kingdragonfly (309) | ||
| 441352 | 2006-03-28 03:41:00 | I'd do what Kingdragonfly suggests. That way you'll know if the HDD itself has died or there is a problem with the USB side of it. | pctek (84) | ||
| 441353 | 2006-03-28 03:47:00 | It's a USB2 and I run Windows XP with SP2. Right now, when I turn on the drive I can hear it starting up and making all the normal sounds it has always made. Plus, the computer gives off that default sound when you plug or unplug something from a USB port. However, I cannot actually locate the drive, nor does the default window pop up asking me what I want to do with it. Also, it doesn't show up in the "remove hardware" feature. So, I can't even remove it properly! This did happen after I tried plugging it into a MAC at my school. I work on a laptop at home and I needed to bring some rather large files to a computer (G5) at my college. The first time I did it, no problem. It worked great. Brought it home, worked fine as always. I brought it in again about 3 days ago and the G5 wasn't reading the drive. I tried a few different G5s with no luck. Each time having to shut off the external drive and then unplug it from the computer. I really hope that I didn't screw up my drive by doing that, but I probably did. Please tell me some good news on how to get my drive working again. That would be music to my ears. Thanks for the replies so far! I will save the taking it apart option as a last resort. |
djzenjen (10076) | ||
| 441354 | 2006-03-28 03:57:00 | Perhaps you accidentally formatted it on one of the MACs. ;) That could explain things. If it hasn't got a "proper" MS format, Windows won't want to know it. Investigate that before taking a screwdriver (or hammer) to it. Try using the Disk Management thingy. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 441355 | 2006-03-28 04:35:00 | I no longer know much about Macs, but I'd guess Graham L hunch could be right. | kingdragonfly (309) | ||
| 441356 | 2006-03-28 06:20:00 | Sounds like Disk Manager is the next place to look - see if it appears there and what sort of partition if any it has. | gcarmich (10068) | ||
| 441357 | 2006-03-28 06:26:00 | Ok. How would I use the Disk Management Thingy? Sorry! Thanks!!! | djzenjen (10076) | ||
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