External Hard Drive

[Amy]

I have a 250GB Western Digital external hard drive. It was working fine until last night, but today neither XP (desktop) nor Vista (laptop) can recognise it. It doesn't appear in Device Manager either, all it says under USBs is "unknown device."

I have uninstalled it and reinstalled it and then we go through the "unknown device" followed by "your device is ready to use." It appears to power up properly and Windows tells me that the drive utilities are up to date yet it cannot be detected.

Any ideas?

[Niklowe]

Re: External Hard Drive

it maybe that the drivers for this device have been corrupted. try going to the the western digital site and see if there are any needed for it.

[Curlyben]

Re: External Hard Drive

Sorry to say but it could well be a parrot, deceased.
As this is a USB external drive there are no additional drivers needed.
The operating system should see and assign a drive letter automatically.

Can you see it in Computer management ?

Start > Control Panel > Admin Tools (you may need to switch to classic mode) > Computer Management > Disk Management.

If your lucky it's simply a case of manually assigning a drive letter, otherwise, well .....

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

I was afraid you'd say that.

No, I can't see it anywhere. Is there any way of getting the data off it?

[Niklowe]

Re: External Hard Drive

Is the light on it doing anything? My external hard drive needed extra power to run. I had to buy an external powered USB hub.

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

Is the light on it doing anything? My external hard drive needed extra power to run. I had to buy an external powered USB hub.

Yes, the light is on and steady. I can feel it whirring if I put my hand on it. So everything seems normal except no computers can see it.

It's plugged straight into the USB ports on the front of the pc, I've tried it in all the ports and it still can't be seen.

Is it likely that it would suddenly need extra power?

[Curlyben]

Re: External Hard Drive

Is it likely that it would suddenly need extra power?

Does it normally need an addition power source ??

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

Does it normally need an addition power source ??

No it doesn't.

Could it be the lead or am I clutching at straws?

[Curlyben]

Re: External Hard Drive

Well looks like you may well of been to McD's recently.

Have a few of mine..

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

pmsl.

Is it possible to get the data off?

[Curlyben]

Re: External Hard Drive

Well if your computers can see the drive then I'm


You could try a data recovery firm, but they cost $$$$

[Xena]

Re: External Hard Drive

Reminds me to back up my data now - thanks Tiger

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

Bugger. Thank you anyway Curly.

[Amy]

Re: External Hard Drive

I got them back! I got it all back.

The Mini-Google that is Cet said he thought it was the USB interface that had failed. So I broke the hard disk out of the casing, pulled the USB interface off, connected it to the desktop using the power supply from the CD Rom drive and hey presto!

They are being copied here there and everywhere I can think of now.

[Tools]

Re: External Hard Drive

Result!!