Help my computer recognize my external hard drive!

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Worked fine for a couple of months, then I unplugged the HD because I needed the plug. Now when I try to re-plug it, the computer will not recognize it. It is plug-n-play and it used to work fine before. Any tips?

― Baaderonixx chez les Belges (Fabfunk), Monday, 18 July 2005 09:15 (twenty years ago)

Try removing the hard drive via Add/Remove Hardware in Control Panel settings, unplug the EHD and turn off PC, plus EHD back in, restart PC.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Monday, 18 July 2005 09:19 (twenty years ago)

Failing that, Device Manager will hold the key. Possibly. (This is a PC, right?)

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Monday, 18 July 2005 09:51 (twenty years ago)

Yes, PC. The computer doesn't see the HD in the add/remove list though

― Baaderonixx chez les Belges (Fabfunk), Monday, 18 July 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

what#s the operating system? maybe you'll need to restart in safe mode and then do the add/remove hardware thing.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 18 July 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

If it's a FireWire one try swapping which socket is connected to the computer. My LaCie one only seems to work one way round (and they aren't labelled).

― grraham (noodles is a cunt), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

It's XP and a USB connection. Safe mode? I can try that.

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:18 (twenty years ago)

Have you added any other USB devices recently?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

I added a printer. That's actually why I had to unplug the HD

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Monday, 18 July 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Do you only have the one USB port?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 18 July 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

No I have several USB ports. I had to unplug the printer because I needed the electricity plug.

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Monday, 18 July 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

Is the drive powered by the bus or by a mains cable?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)

By mains cable do you mean a normal electric cable? That's what I use

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 08:25 (twenty years ago)

Safe mode won't work, as it doesn't load the USB drivers (as far as I can remember).

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:02 (twenty years ago)

Yeah I was thinking it might be a USB power issue if the drive was bus powered, (ie powered by the computers USB port) and there were other devices on the same USB channel that it might not be able to provide enough power, i have this issue with my bus powered USB HDD and my Ipod when they are both hooked up.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:17 (twenty years ago)

Have you tried showing it a picture? (ducks pie)

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:43 (twenty years ago)

When you plug the hard drive into the electrical socket, do you hear the fan turn on? Is there an actual power switch on the hard drive that needs to flipped before it'll work?

If it is the kind that can be easily opened, try doing that and seeing if any connections are obviously loose.

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

It seems turned on since the activity light goes on.

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

If you haven't already, try plugging it into a different USB port.

Is this one of those external IDE-->USB enclosure-syle things, or is it a slim and expensive real external hard drive?

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 14:51 (twenty years ago)

Hmm, I'm not sure what the difference is. It's a Iomega box, looks like a kind of hardback book.

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 18:10 (twenty years ago)

If it's that big, it's probably an enclosure. when you're satisfied that you've tried everything, you could just open it up and see if anything's come loose. Or buy another empty enclosure (for about $30 or so), and put the old hard drive in it. That's cheaper than buying a whole new one, and you won't lose your data.

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

Before opening anything up, check your Device Manager to make sure there's no driver issue...it may be showing up with an exclamation point beside it, in which case you should try updating the driver, or uninstalling it, then unplugging/replugging it. It may be a simple issue.

May be a silly question, but have you rebooted your computer since? (Maybe you're one of the people that leaves it running all the time? If so, reboot and try again.)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Thanks for all the advice!
Nothing shows up on the Device Manager and I reboot every morning. I might open it up but since I'm really scared of hardware, I might just give it to be repaired? Shouldnt cost too much I figure.

― Baaderonixx cancels each other out (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 06:36 (twenty years ago)

five months pass...

So I have a 200gb Seagate Firewire drive that has worked like a charm until this morning, when I hooked it up to my powerbook and it won't mount. It just turns over and over. I'm not freaking out because this is the THIRD time this has happened to me (each with separate drives) but...any tips?

I tried both Disk Utility (which won't start while the drive is hooked up) and Disk Warrior (which only recognizes my internal drive).

I'm kind of resigned to getting yet another drive, but thought I'd throw this out there to all the smart mac folks on ILX.

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Monday, 16 January 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

...it works!

just needed some time I guess.

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:04 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

RIP :(

― max, Sunday, 1 June 2008 06:10 (seventeen years ago)

n00b

― DG, Sunday, 1 June 2008 06:16 (seventeen years ago)

lol

― SeekAltRoute, Sunday, 1 June 2008 08:43 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

― Louis Cll (darraghmac), Sunday, 15 November 2009 23:07 (sixteen years ago)

― Lord Byron Bay of Pigs (SeekAltRoute), Monday, 16 November 2009 09:34 (sixteen years ago)

― Louis Cll (darraghmac), Monday, 16 November 2009 16:39 (sixteen years ago)

iomega screenplay multimedia drive isn't being recognised by windows explorer. tried it on a few computers, restarted in safe mode, nada. just got my hands on about 10-15 boxsets i'd been after from the tv shows of the decade thread too. ;_;

― Louis Cll (darraghmac), Monday, 16 November 2009 16:41 (sixteen years ago)

Try TestDisk:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
I have used it to successfully recover an external drive that was knocked on the floor. Right now, I have a disk that has a messed up partition table, and I am using the PhotoRec app to retrieve the data. It's taking a pretty long time, so I am trying to copy files by extension, since they are all renamed.
Good luck!

― pfennig dreadful (doo dah), Monday, 16 November 2009 19:26 (sixteen years ago)

thanks, appreciate that. this appears to be a hugely common complaint with this particular model. still in warranty, but i'll try that first.

― Louis Cll (darraghmac), Monday, 16 November 2009 20:46 (sixteen years ago)

six months pass...

if i get a new external hard drive for my pc, is there any reason that a mac won't be able to recognize it and transfer files from it? i feel like in the past i've had this work without a hitch and also had issues, not sure if there's anything special i have to do.

― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Monday, 7 June 2010 16:10 (fifteen years ago)

macs should be able to read NTFS (which is likely what your PC will format it to) but it won't be able to write to it. so yeah it should recognize and transfer files from it.

― fruiting bodies of minds in agony (dyao), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 01:47 (fifteen years ago)

three months pass...

Computer people/Windoze experts:

I have an old laptop hard drive, I have an enclosure, everything works perfectly EXCEPT that I cannot seem to access any of the files, because I don't have permission. I have switched ownership of the device to my current computer, and I can jump through a bunch of hoops and change permissions for single folders one-at-a-time, but it won't in turn change permissions for all the thousands of subfolders. How do I access my device again?

― omg is it rly tru r u srly a woodpecker taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap (Stevie D), Thursday, 23 September 2010 20:44 (fifteen years ago)

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