portable harddrive

[Denise]

I have a simpletech pininfarina portable hard drive it has worked great up
untill yesterday. I could access all my files on it with no problem.
I am running windows xp. I noticed that over the thanksgiving holiday my
computer did updating and shut down. I also installed a new HP wireless
printer on it this weekend. Since then it does dont show my portable drive,
i have uninstalled and reinstalled and it either says unrecognized or error
when installing.
I can take the portable hard drive and use it on my laptop which is running
vista just fine. But on my desktop with xp it doesnt called tech support for
the hard drive and they had no idea.
I even tried to uninstall the microsoft updates and that did not help.
Any ideas????

 

[Rich Barry]

Denise, you may need a secondary power cable connection. It's described
in the User Guide. You can get one at the site provided. Also, you can try
disconnecting all USB devices and rt click MyComputer>select
Properties>Hardware>Device Manager>USB controllers. rt click on each one
and choose Uninstall. Restart and let WinXP reinstall them.
http://www.simpletech.com/support/guides.php

 

[Denise]

I've tried that too mine has the dual cord, I think i have basically tried
everything i even called simple tech. It worked fine up until sometime after
weds. the 25th. It did microsoft updates, and then on sunday i installed a
new hp wireless printer. Then monday when i tried to access the portable
drive to do my work it would not let me i had to use my laptop which for alot
of typing is not the most comfortable. I like to use my desktop for that.

 

[Denise]

if i unplug the hp printer which on this computer is usb the portable hard
drive works. I am contacting hp to see what it could be.

 

[Denise]

ok i figured this out, after i unplugged the printer the portable hard drive
worked, so i tried to contact hp on the printer and while i was waiting i
decided to plug the printer into a different usb port on the back ( i have 4
on the back and 2 on the front of my machine) after doing this the portable
hard drive worked and so does the printer so i would say some how the usb
ports were conflicting. What a pain this was.

 

[smlunatick]

ok i figured this out, after i unplugged the printer the portable hard drive
worked, so i tried to contact hp on the printer and while i was waiting i
decided to plug the printer into a different usb port on the back ( i have 4
on the back and 2 on the front of my machine) after doing this the portable
hard drive worked and so does the printer so i would say some how the usb
ports were conflicting.  What a pain this was.  

The USB ports are not conflicting. Your problem is that the two USB
devices (hard drive and HP printer) is requesting too much power from
the USB ports. You might be able to "fix" this by adding an external
USB "self powered" hub. These usually have their own power supply and
will provide more power to the USB device over the USB ports.

 

[Rich Barry]

Denise, I found this in Simpletech's FAQ

1) I have the drive plugged in but I cannot find the drive in "My Computer",
why?
The most likely cause would be not enough power provided by a single USB
port on your computer. Unplug the portable drive from the cable and unplug
the cable from the computer. Now, plug the cable into 2 USB ports directly
on your computer. (If you have a desktop, you should plug the USB cable
directly into the USB ports on the back of the computer. If this is a
laptop, you should plug directly into a USB ports on the computer. Do not
plug into a USB hub or docking station). Then plug the drive into the cable.
In a few seconds you should see the drive listed in the "My Computer" window
as a SimpleDrivePS.