USB external hard drive problem

D-!

I have an 80gb external hard drive about a year and a half and just today it sounds like it keeps switching on and off and i cant access all my music stuff or games now i checked all the leads and rebooted the pc a few times but its still not working any ideas?
Thanks.

bishopLEN

What model drive is it ? could you post a link ?

Ruu_Old

Uninstall the device and re-install would be the first thing I would do. Give us some specs on the drive please.

bishopLEN

There are a few things that can happen.

The molex connector to the HDD can become loose, I just used a screw drive to bend the conectors slightly.
Also if yours has an on/off switch. these switches can be cheap and just give up. You could short the switch (by pass it).
Look also at the manufacturers website you could have a external enclosure that can be upgraded (firmware).

D-!

It's a Maxtor diamond max plus 9 ?? ATA/133 hdd I hope that makes sense

Saruman

If it sounds like its turning on and off then its unlikely to be a software problem so reinstalling will be useless.. especially since you do not usually install drivers for these.. windows has them.

Dont worry if its just your music you are worried about.. if worst case its a faulty ext adapter but drive itself is fine then take out drive and plug in to your PC with the IDE connector..

Ruu_Old

Ah external case, sorries didnt read. What Saruman said.

D-!

Saruman wrote:

If it sounds like its turning on and off then its unlikely to be a software problem so reinstalling will be useless.. especially since you do not usually install drivers for these.. windows has them.

Dont worry if its just your music you are worried about.. if worst case its a faulty ext adapter but drive itself is fine then take out drive and plug in to your PC with the IDE connector..

Ok I just took the drive out do you mean try the drive out in the tower case Hook the power lead and IDE lead up
Sorry about this:(

sweno

Ya, plug it into a free IDE socket in your PC and plug the power lead in. Make sure the jumpers (little pins with a plastic connector over two of them) are set to either the "cable select" or "slave" jumper (there are usually at least 3 sets of jumpers on the back of a drive giving a total of 6 pins in a 3 x 3 configuration; the pastic connector is placed over two in order to select whether you want the drive to be the master, slave etc.... Move the Jumper to the set of pins that have cable select under them and place it over them).

Also note some HDD use abbreviations for Cable Select, Master and Slave.

MA = Master
SL = Slave
CS = Cable Select

Sorry if im over doing it on detail just trying to cover all the bases

D-!

I put the HD in the way you said, thanks it worked... kind of, new problem now, when I turned my pc back on I hit f8 to go to bios settings I get an options menu like this:
Select 1st boot device.
IDE - 0 maxtor 6Y080L0
IDE - 1 maxtor 4R060J0 -( I selected this one because it was the original 60gb hd)
CD/DVD
BBS -0 Network

I can access all the music on the 2nd drive no problem now, but what I dont understand is why I the first boot device I selected wont boot the pc any time I turn the pc back on.
I hope I gave enough information here.
Thanks for all your help so far guys;)

quaidox

are both drives on the same ide cable?
if so, sounds like both of them are set to be masters.
check the drive casing on the external drive. it should have a diagram showing how to set the jumpers on the drive so that it is a slave drive.....
this should sort it out for you