[Brian Bullough]

Neither My laptop nor PC will not recognize my external hard-drive it may just be the usb cable which seems rather a loose fit ,but failing that is there anyway I can retreive the files ( mostly photos ) from the drive.

Brian

[Andrew Rowlands]

Hi Brian,

If neither machine can access the drive it could well be the cable - but that's very unlikely. Does Device Manager recognise the device (the USB box, not the hard drive inside it)?

Is it still in warranty (I suggest you open it and install the drive to your PC)? What size is the drive and how old is your PC?

Can you find out if it uses a Cypress chipset (this has been causing lots of problems recently, there may be a fix if it does)?

Cheers,

Andy.

[Jane Turner]

I travel to work with all my files on an external drive. I have the occasional problem using USB connections and an external drive. It ocurrs most frequently with older lap tops. I solved it by connecting through a powered up USB port or using a different machine.

[desgreene]

I had a USB drive that my laptop would not find. If I went to "Computer Management" and then "Disk Management" you could see the drive. If it works for you, then you can right click on the drive and select "explore".

Worth a try!

Des.

[Brian Bullough]

Originally Posted by Brian Bullough

Neither My laptop nor PC will not recognize my external hard-drive it may just be the usb cable which seems rather a loose fit ,but failing that is there anyway I can retreive the files ( mostly photos ) from the drive.

Brian

Many thanks for the replies
The unit is a 320gig AC powered with one of those square usb conections it is still in warranty but before I return the device my first thought was to ask if another conection cable could be tried,not sure about the Cypress chipset I will check the paper work,device manager just shows other devices---unknown device with a yellow question mark and there is an unknown device in the usb controller section
Brian

[Touty]

Unplug, shut down, plug in, turn on (i.e plugged in at boot-up, having been unplugged at shut down - sometimes seems to work for pens on stroppy machines. That said, sounds like the cable itself.

[ryanibis]

The yellow question mark in device manager means that component is not working. It sounds like your USB port, or specifically the one you're plugging your ext drive into, is not working or got chingered up somehow. If it worked before, it's likely a driver problem.

When you highlight that device in device manager, you could try "update driver" and see if Windows can reinstall the driver. If that fails, uninstall the device (as opposed to "disable") and reboot, Windows should then reinstall the proper driver.

Depending on what version of Windows you're running, loading drivers can be frustrating, especially if the driver file itself is corrupted. The original drivers can be reloaded from the PCs disks or downloaded online.

Play with device manager until you get rid of that yellow question mark, I'm pretty sure that'll solve your problem. If you have trouble loading or reloading the driver shoot me a note and I'll help ya.

cheers

[Brian Bullough]

Originally Posted by ryanibis

The yellow question mark in device manager means that component is not working. It sounds like your USB port, or specifically the one you're plugging your ext drive into, is not working or got chingered up somehow. If it worked before, it's likely a driver problem.

When you highlight that device in device manager, you could try "update driver" and see if Windows can reinstall the driver. If that fails, uninstall the device (as opposed to "disable") and reboot, Windows should then reinstall the proper driver.

Depending on what version of Windows you're running, loading drivers can be frustrating, especially if the driver file itself is corrupted. The original drivers can be reloaded from the PCs disks or downloaded online.

Play with device manager until you get rid of that yellow question mark, I'm pretty sure that'll solve your problem. If you have trouble loading or reloading the driver shoot me a note and I'll help ya.

cheers

Thanks for the offer of help.
I have tried various methods and even other machines eventually took it back to PC World they offered an other with an optional charge of £30 to recover the data,as they had a hardive at special price (£30 cheaper) I did not have to pay the extra.
So I have my Photos back but now on a lump of a hardrive rather than my slim sleek cased but useless drive,I was going to choose two smaller drives in exchange but 40 gig drives where about £70 each how do they price these things 320gig drive £79.99 ??
To sum up PC World offer data recovery,(as probably others do) worth thinking about if all else fails.
Brian

[Andrew Rowlands]

Originally Posted by Brian Bullough

I have tried various methods and even other machines eventually took it back to PC World they offered an other with an optional charge of £30 to recover the data,as they had a hardive at special price (£30 cheaper) I did not have to pay the extra.
So I have my Photos back but now on a lump of a hardrive rather than my slim sleek cased but useless drive,I was going to choose two smaller drives in exchange but 40 gig drives where about £70 each how do they price these things 320gig drive £79.99 ??
To sum up PC World offer data recovery,[as probably others do) worth thinking about if all else fails.

Glad you have your data back, Brian but all PC World did was what I suggested in my first post - opened the box and installed the drive to a PC.

Did they give you an explanation as to what went wrong? My money is now firmly on the Cypress chipset issue.

Can you get them to tell you what chipset the replacement box uses?

I take it the price and size difference means that you had a 2.5" laptop-sized hard drive before and you now have a 3.5" destop-sized drive now. Laptop drives are more expensive and the capacity is not so big.

Andy.

[Brian Bullough]

Originally Posted by Andrew Rowlands

Glad you have your data back, Brian but all PC World did was what I suggested in my first post - opened the box and installed the drive to a PC.

Did they give you an explanation as to what went wrong? My money is now firmly on the Cypress chipset issue.

Can you get them to tell you what chipset the replacement box uses?

I take it the price and size difference means that you had a 2.5" laptop-sized hard drive before and you now have a 3.5" destop-sized drive now. Laptop drives are more expensive and the capacity is not so big.

Andy.

Hi Andy this drive was under warranty and I knew I would get a replacement I did manage to remove and replace the seal but could not get the drive out without marking the box,so if I had pulled it to bits and it still did not work no replacement,if they could not get the data transferred there would have been no charge so it seemed the best solution at the time.
Both where 3.5" but the first was a slim light case the replacement is a Seagate much larger lump altogether,my laptop is only usb1 so it was not economical to buy the 2.5" drive which as you say are much more expensive,I have just found out there is a PCMCIA card that can supply USB2 but I think it also needs it's own power supply.
It seems you have to keep upgrading to get the best out of a computer,just thought i would post an update in-case anyone else had the same problem.
Brian