dlhusk said:
I bought a Beyond Micro 250GB USB Mobile Drive from TigerDirect.com
(refurb) and installed it to my HP Media center PC and it all worked
fine. I have had it now for about a week and turned the PC on today and
it was gone!
I tried switching the USB cables, switching USB ports on computer, etc
but nothing. Then I just tried to reinstall it but it still would not
pick it up. Then I put it to the laptop and it did not recognize it
either. I only paid $79.00 for it and it has a warranty but I have to
pay shipping on it so it may not be worth getting an RMA on it?
Anyone have any ideas what I could try on my own and next question I
was told I could maybe take the HD out of the enclosure and put it in
the computer as a internal HD, any thoughts on this?
Thanks if you can help, if not thanks for reading.....Happy Holidays!
Danny
Romans 8:28
Danny:
It sounds like that USB external HDD has "given up the Ghost" - either the
enclosure and/or the HDD has become defective. But in the event the device
is still theoretically functional, we have prepared some USB troubleshooting
tips you may want to try which I'm listing below.
While your query re removing the HDD from the enclosure and installing it as
an internal HDD is a "tried & true" diagnostic technique in these kinds of
problems (it's listed as one of our "tips"), I'm not sure you should go that
route in this situation. It's virtually sure to void your warranty. Unless
you can get specific authorization from Beyond Micro to do this, I would
advise against it.
Seems to me your best bet is to RMA it back to Tiger Direct since it's still
under warranty. Since you purchased the device for $79.00 it's hard to
imagine that your shipping cost would be so great as to negate returning
the item?
Anyway, here are those troubleshooting tips...
1. Access Disk Management and see if the USB device is listed. If so, and
there's no drive letter assigned, see if you can assign a drive letter to
the device.
2. If the USB device is listed in Disk Management with an assigned drive
letter, right-click on its listing and select Explore from the submenu.
Hopefully, Windows Explorer will open and the device will be listed.
3. Connect the USB device *directly* to a USB port on the computer, not via
a USB hub. Try different USB ports should your computer have multiple ports.
4. Avoid using a USB extension cable.
5. Try connecting a USB device (that does not contain an auxiliary power
supply) to a USB port both before and after the boot operation.
6. Where a USB (or Firewire) external HDD is involved, access Device
Manager, highlight the Disk drives listing and click on the Action menu item
and then the "Scan for hardware changes" sub-menu item. Do the same in Disk
Management > Action > Rescan disks.
7. Try alternate powering on/off methods. If the USB device contains its own
power supply, try booting up with its power on, then try powering on only
*after* the system has booted to a Desktop.
8. Try a different USB cable.
9. In the USB controllers section of Device Manager, uninstall all the USB
controllers listed and reboot.
10. If the device in question is not a commercial USB external HDD but
rather one in which you installed a HDD in a USB enclosure, jumper the HDD
as Master (or Single if the HDD is a Western Digital disk). A number of
users have reported that jumper configuration corrected their
non-recognition problem. In my own experience it didn't seem to matter how a
USB external HDD was jumpered. But it may be worth a try.
11. If the device in question is a USB external HDD, first check out the HDD
with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility. If it checks out OK,
and you can remove the HDD from its enclosure (without voiding any
applicable warranty), do so and install the HDD as an internal HDD to
determine if there are problems with the drive.
12. If the USB device is connected to a USB 2.0 PCI card, try changing the
PCI slot to which it's currently connected to another one.
13. Access the website of the manufacturer of the USB device to determine if
there's any firmware update or info re the problem you're experiencing or
there's any possibility that the USB enclosure itself might be defective.
14. Determine from the manufacturer of your motherboard whether there's a
BIOS upgrade affecting USB device recognition.
I might add that a number of posters have reported they've found useful
information re troubleshooting USB devices on this site...
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html
Anna
