shittty external hard drive problem 2 : during vacation.

Joao Sapiro

Ok , so im supposed to be in vacation and i brought my external hard drive ( with naruto and some other stuff ) and everytime i connected it it was amazing no problems wjat so ever. Te most that the hard drive gets is to be standing still without anything that could damage it.
I turn the PC on , plug the hard drive and computer says it doesnt recognize it...i tried everything , connecting to other usb ports etc but still doesnt recognize it. What the fuck is wrong ?! are external hard drives programmed to give up in a moment where they are actually needed !? jesus i could kill a dog now

P.S - i tried google and the only answers i found were either to plug it to a mac computer or some other weird stuff that made no sense


HLP

Mark Dygert

Sadly, just because they're external, doesn't mean they're any more durable, normally less so. Unless they're memory drives they still have moving parts that can easily fall out of alignment, break or wear out. The more portable you make it, the more prone to fuck ups it is.

This won't help you now, but maybe later, burn that stuff to a DVD's next time, yea it takes a while, but they're more durable and cheaper then an external HD. And if a DVD gets broken, ah crap there goes 20 cents.

At best, if the data is critical to your survival you can have a data recovery place try to recover it, more then likely its a simple tweak or replacement mechanical part and they can access the data again. But they're EXPENSIVE and the drive is normally toast. So don't bother if you don't really need it. Other then that, I don't think there's much you can do... =/

Kovac

Basically what Vig said, in addition to trying it on a few different PCs as well first and using a different USB cord for connecting as well.

If there's nothing of use on it and it's close to being a useless drive I'd suggest teaching it a lesson and smacking it around a bit. I've fixed so many consoles, hard drives, and car dashboard gauges when I knew they were toast by hauling off and giving it a good ol kidney punch.

pliang

When traveling its better to have them DVDs in the first place...Box.net may also be a good storage online...

Maybe run a boot disk check app...?

Blaizer

Too bad, i have 2 WD external HDs and for me is better than DvDs, less space and more capacity (In spain we pay a "canon" for private copy, so dvds turned out expensive).

But reading this I'm afraid now lol, it's not the first time i read something like this, too lose 4GB of information can be as sad as to lose 500GB or 1TB. Do back ups of all your important files.

Try to connect the HD to another computer.

Good luck!

Uly

I had this once happen to my portable hard drive about a year ago... A year later, I plugged it in, and it worked perfectly, and still is. |: | They're strange cats, basically, don't give up on it. Try different PC's as well, there's so many weird things that you can do to save the data.

PfhorRunner

Another option is when the hard drive is plugged in through USB, and it says its an unrecognized device, go into your device manager and force it to try to find drivers. If you're using Vista, it is more likely to find them if you're connected to the net.

If it IS recognized, and the drivers are loaded, you just can't access it, again go into device manager, right click your external hdd, and delete the driver. Scan for hardware changes, and then let it search the net for the drivers again.

Driver re-installations fix about 50% of the problems you're going to have with your windows machine.

Joao Sapiro

thanks everyone ! so yeah so far it seems that whenever i plug the information cable ( it has two usb cables, 1 for power and another one for the data) it sas its an unindentifed product , i tried the method pfhorrunner mentioned and after unistaling it and scanning for hardware changes it still gives me the unindentified hardware, its amazing how stuff fail when you most need it and this hard drive didnt even receive a windblow :S

is there any program that can scan the disk or try to force connect it ? im downloading a bloatware full program called "discwizard" from maxtor , not the same brand but meh , memorex website doesnt offer clear help since my product isnt even listed there :S Ultra travel drive UTD 1160.

thanks again yall

Psyk0

That sucks ...well i managed to scan and recover data from an external drive but it was a regular IDE drive plugged into a USB box (can read whatever sized drive you throw into it as well as IDE burners).

If it at least shows up in hardware then you have a chance, it'll take a while to scan if it works.

TheWinterLord

have you tried it on another computer? maybe it has a lock button/small switch that can have been touched? GL

yeh i had a usb drive with a switch...

Joao Sapiro

ok, so im bout to go tke the hard drive to a pc clinic, but for some fuked up reason, i turn the pc on, and there is a scratch inside the lcd with black pixels around it , i mean what the fuck is happening ?! stuff is getting broken with no reason , we dont bump the pc around , it just stays still etc , nothing , and stuff like this is happening , last thing we need is to replace te lcd.

FUCKNG COMPUTAHS

P.S - any tips to deal with ddead pixels, i found a program called JScreenFIX , but with no avail

Psyk0

What LCD brand you have and how old is it? some companies have dead pixel warranty.

http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Stuck-Pixel-on-an-LCD-Monitor

You know you should really wash your hands after taking a shit, it's probably why you break all that hardware.