External Hard-drive probs

[Ms Monny]

Hi all

I had to disassemble my computer when I moved last week and when I plug my external hard drive back into my computer, I can't open it. It doesn't even register with my computer that it is plugged in!!

It is a normal usb plug.

I thought it was just a simple plug in and and away you go. ???

All my pics are on the ex. HD.

How do I open it??

[arthurking83]

Make sure that you have the power plug connected and turned on(don't laugh, it's a common issue).

But yes, the ext HDD should register automagically when you plug it in .. once it spins up.

So with the power plug in and on, do you hear a slight whirring noise, and a very slight chattering noise in the HDD?
If so then it's powering up OK(I think).

Are you running Windows, or something else as your OS.
If Windows, do you hear the badoop notification when connecting the USB cable to the PC.
Windows will automatically display a pop up windows displaying options on what to do from there.

Have you restarted the PC with the ext HDD already installed and powered up.

[Ms Monny]

OMG!

For some reason it took nearly a day or two to actually power up! This morning I checked my 'computer' and saw it wasnt listed (C drive was but G drive wasn't). NOW WHEN I LOOK it is there. I am sorry I wasted your time.

[John Witte]

Computer speed can come into play as well. Older systems can take a while to read the drive. Hard drived ane very handy to have as a bavk up and transfering large amounts of data. Great for movi nights

[arthurking83]

I've never had an external HDD that has been slow to boot up.

That is, they should power up and become recognized pretty much straight away.

But they can take a while to index fully if they're slow HDDs(which most bought external drives will be).

Just one of those things M .. it'll probably happen again one day.

BTW ... is it getting full?
And do a couple of scans on it too .. just in case this episode may have been a possible indication that it may be on it's last legs.

[Cwindy05]

If this happens again I would be very concerned about the well being of your HDD, we have had a few fail recently that started in a similar fashion. The failing component has been the power supply that has in turn fried components on the board. All data was eventually recovered although it wasn't simple or cheap!

[ricktas]

Sounds to me more like a USB registration issue or similar than the extHDD. Did it have power (is there a power light on it)? Sometimes computer USB ports just fail to recognise something is plugged in. I would watch the HDD and always..always have 2 backups, but it could well have been a USB connectivity issue.

[ameerat42]

Yes. Try some other USB ports.

[PhotoPaul]

It seems like you've solved it but keep in mind that another issue can be drive letter allocation conflicts. I've had this happen with a few of my external drives. I fixed it by permanently assigning a letter to each of them, right at the end of the alphabet. This avoids any problems with usb sticks or new drives.

[Ms Monny]

drive letter allocation conflicts? Do you mean the drive the ex hd was in before? I am very naive when it comes to this stuff....

[PhotoPaul]

That's possible. When you plug in any disk drive, be it flash drive, CD/DVD, internal or external HDD, the computer will assign a drive letter to it (like how your main HDD is "C" drive). When you use multiple drives, sometimes the computer can assign a letter which has been reserved for another drive. It's not very often this happens (in fact it's only very recently I've had this issue and I've been using multiple drives for years), but when it does it's quite frustrating if you don't know how to fix it.

There are plenty of guides on the net on how to fix it though, and they're very easy to follow. I personally wouldn't worry about it until you came across the issue. No need to over-complicate a problem.

[Ms Monny]

Well it assigned the G drive to it. Don't know it it had probs locating the drive but when it started working again, it was a G drive again.