External Hard Drive

alwaystherain

Ive got a 500gb samsung 3.5 hard drive and have this put in a quickport combo docking station so useing this a temporary external hard drive.

All was well for the past 2 weeks as i was moving files from my pc to the temporary external hard drive it just stopped.The pc wont see the drive for a few seconds then vanish.
The hard drive powers up then shuts down.
If you dont connect it to the usb lead it will power up ok and spin but as soon as you connect it with the usb to the pc the spinning stops and the external Hard Drive shuts down
Ive tried 3 usb leads
Ive tried to use this in my laptop and same thing happens
Ive put other hard drives in the docking station and it works for them.
anyone got any ideas on this?
Is the Hard Drive itself broke?

Verres

It definitely sounds like an issue with the external drive. My advice would be to back up all your data to a different drive and then bring the external drive that's causing the issue for repair.

If I had to guess, it sounds like some sort of connection issue inside the drive casing whereby the act of pushing in the USB cable touches a loose connection and the drive either shuts itself down to protect itself, or the loose connection itself is the power-off connection and it just gets "activated" by plugging it in.

If you know what your doing, open the casing and have a look around.

BUT BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST!

riclad

i have the same problem, my 350 gb sata drive stopped working.Plug in drive.
try control panel, administration,computer management ,
storage.
it should show up as drive
e or f.
if it does,nt show up ,its likely drive is just not working.
IF using win 7 the green icon ,remove hardware
eject media ,should appear in system tray,lower right ,bedside clock icon, whenever you plug in an external drive.
ITS possible to swap a hd pcb ,if you have acess to
another Identical drive, no gaurantee it will work.
borrow a sata caddy ,and try it in that.
when using an external drive,you should always, click
icon ,remove ,eject media before removing drive cable.
or shut down pc, then remove drive.
i think the pcb,or the drive mechanism , moving parts is dead.

i think my drive must have got a knock, as i had it in a plastic case ,under a laptop,it just grinds , doesnt show up in storage,control panel.I tested it in 2 pcs.
i think any pc user , will at some point find a drive is dead,
its safer to leave a drive in a caddy ,cost 15 euro ,
drives dont like being moved frequently.

U_Fig

One thing if the drive powers up and spins ok it prob isn't the problem..(tho It could still be.) if you have a pc try removing the HDD from the enclosure and open the case of the pc and connect it straight to a spare sata cable..then power on the pc and see if it recognises it..If not then the drive is probably f****d.. If it does work then its the enclosure more than likely try a different enclosure

riclad

You ,d need a 3.5inch caddy,if you want to try it.
my drive powers up, it makes some noise,
it can,t be acessed anyway. remove hardware, eject media icon appears in my system tray.When i plug it in.
You could try loading a linux livecd ,eg mint ,if you have one handy,boot pc from live cd.
Just cos a drive powers up ,doesnt mean its not faulty.
if its ide drive it may need more power.

Sup08

U_Fig wrote: »

One thing if the drive powers up and spins ok it prob isn't the problem..(tho It could still be.) if you have a pc try removing the HDD from the enclosure and open the case of the pc and connect it straight to a spare sata cable..then power on the pc and see if it recognises it..If not then the drive is probably f****d.. If it does work then its the enclosure more than likely try a different enclosure

^^^ Best and quickest option.