USB drive not showing?

[Hymer]

Hello Everyone,

I have an 80 gig Iomega USB external drive that has been working fine for
several months. All of a sudden the drive letter is not showing up on My
Computer. I am running WinXP Pro with all updates.

Device Manager is showing that the "Device Can Not Start (Code 10). I tried
to unplug and replug the drive plus restarting the computer. Nothing seems
to work.

Does anyone know what I might try to recover the drive?

Thanks a lot,

Bob

 

[Ghostrider]

Hello Everyone,

I have an 80 gig Iomega USB external drive that has been working fine for
several months. All of a sudden the drive letter is not showing up on My
Computer. I am running WinXP Pro with all updates.

Device Manager is showing that the "Device Can Not Start (Code 10). I tried
to unplug and replug the drive plus restarting the computer. Nothing seems
to work.

Does anyone know what I might try to recover the drive?

Thanks a lot,

Bob

Test the USB external drive in another USB port. If this is
unsuccessful, test in another computer. Failing all that, the
USB hard drive should be considered broken. If one needs to
recover the data on the drive, find a professional outfit. Of,
if not concerned about the data, return USB external drive for
warranty service/replacement...do not expect Iomega to recover
any files from it.

 

[Plato]

I have an 80 gig Iomega USB external drive that has been working fine for
several months. All of a sudden the drive letter is not showing up on My
Computer. I am running WinXP Pro with all updates.

Have you added more usb devices?

 

[Hymer]

Have you added more usb devices?

No, everything is the same since the last time it was working. This seems to
have come up out of the blue. I don't think I did anything since it was
working right.

It seems to be the same in more than one usb port.

Any thoughts on what I might check?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Uncle Joe]

Have you tried your USB external drive on another PC? If it fails on
the different PC, you can safely assume that you have a bad drive.

 

[Anna]

No, everything is the same since the last time it was working. This seems
to have come up out of the blue. I don't think I did anything since it was
working right.

It seems to be the same in more than one usb port.

Any thoughts on what I might check?

Thanks,

Bob

Bob:
The following will probably be of little help to you with your problem but
let me cite our experiences over the past two years or so with USB 2.0
devices, particularly as they affect jump (flash, thumb, memory, etc.)
drives and USB external hard drives...

We have continually run into situations where apparently non-defective USB
2.0 devices connected to apparently non-defective USB ports in apparently
properly-configured systems simply don't originally work, or stop working
after a period of time, or work erratically, i.e., sometimes they do,
sometimes they don't. For no accountable reason, the device will work in one
machine and not in another. It's been an aggravating problem for many of us
because we can't seem to find a common denominator to explain all these
anomalies. We hardly ever ran into these problems with USB 1.0/1.1 devices,
but of course the number of those devices in use at the time was a fraction
of the number of USB 2.0 devices presently in use.

We are fast coming to the conclusion that either there must be some
fundamental incompatibility inherent in the USB 2.0 specification that is
causing these types of problems as it involves the design and manufacture
of these USB devices, and/or the system protocols and devices that are
employed to work with these devices are defective in some way. Or perhaps
it's just a matter of poor quality control in the manufacture of these
devices (even extending to the same make & model of the device involved) in
that sometimes they work; sometimes they don't. Or perhaps some
incompatibility existing between the XP OS and the USB 2.0 specification
that results in these puzzling occurrences.

Anyway...

In your particular case, as has been recommended - if you can, connect the
device to another machine and see if it works. Do you have a jump drive or
other USB device that you can connect to your computer's USB port(s)? What
happens then? If it seems that the hard drive may be defective, can you
remove it from the enclosure without voiding the warranty and connecting it
as an internal drive to test it? Have you tried uninstalling the USB
controllers in Device Manager, and rebooting, so that the OS will re:install
those controllers? Have you been in touch with Iomega re this problem?
Anna

 

[Hymer]

Bob:
The following will probably be of little help to you with your problem but
let me cite our experiences over the past two years or so with USB 2.0
devices, particularly as they affect jump (flash, thumb, memory, etc.)
drives and USB external hard drives...

We have continually run into situations where apparently non-defective USB
2.0 devices connected to apparently non-defective USB ports in apparently
properly-configured systems simply don't originally work, or stop working
after a period of time, or work erratically, i.e., sometimes they do,
sometimes they don't. For no accountable reason, the device will work in
one machine and not in another. It's been an aggravating problem for many
of us because we can't seem to find a common denominator to explain all
these anomalies. We hardly ever ran into these problems with USB 1.0/1.1
devices, but of course the number of those devices in use at the time was
a fraction of the number of USB 2.0 devices presently in use.

We are fast coming to the conclusion that either there must be some
fundamental incompatibility inherent in the USB 2.0 specification that is
causing these types of problems as it involves the design and manufacture
of these USB devices, and/or the system protocols and devices that are
employed to work with these devices are defective in some way. Or perhaps
it's just a matter of poor quality control in the manufacture of these
devices (even extending to the same make & model of the device involved)
in that sometimes they work; sometimes they don't. Or perhaps some
incompatibility existing between the XP OS and the USB 2.0 specification
that results in these puzzling occurrences.

Anyway...

In your particular case, as has been recommended - if you can, connect the
device to another machine and see if it works. Do you have a jump drive or
other USB device that you can connect to your computer's USB port(s)? What
happens then? If it seems that the hard drive may be defective, can you
remove it from the enclosure without voiding the warranty and connecting
it as an internal drive to test it? Have you tried uninstalling the USB
controllers in Device Manager, and rebooting, so that the OS will
re:install those controllers? Have you been in touch with Iomega re this
problem?
Anna

Thanks for all the suggestions. Much appreciated.

I was able to get the drive back but I am not sure how. The last thing I did
was unplug the power and USB cable from the drive itself. After re-plugging,
it worked. It might have been a dusty connector or something like that.

At any rate, I am up and running.

Thanks again everyone,

Bob

 

[Guest]

Anna, your post intrigued me. I searched this discussion group looking for
clues as to why a 40 GB Western Digital USB drive sometimes isn't getting a
drive letter but is getting connected (it can safe-removee; it is found to
be "working properly" by device manager).

That problem remains unsolved, but your allusion to general unpredictability
of USB 2.0 in a Windows environment matches somewhat my limited experience:
USB drives sometimes showing a drive letter, sometimes not; a cable-powered
USB 2.0 hub used to connect two printers causing the printers to work
intermitently.

I'd be interested to know if anyone can confirm the general compatibility
problems suspected by Anna or, better, shed some light on the causes of the
types of USB 2.0 problems that she mentions.

Thanks!

<snip>

 

[Rock]

Anna, your post intrigued me. I searched this discussion group looking for
clues as to why a 40 GB Western Digital USB drive sometimes isn't getting a
drive letter but is getting connected (it can safe-removee; it is found to
be "working properly" by device manager).

That problem remains unsolved, but your allusion to general unpredictability
of USB 2.0 in a Windows environment matches somewhat my limited experience:
USB drives sometimes showing a drive letter, sometimes not; a cable-powered
USB 2.0 hub used to connect two printers causing the printers to work
intermitently.

I'd be interested to know if anyone can confirm the general compatibility
problems suspected by Anna or, better, shed some light on the causes of the
types of USB 2.0 problems that she mentions.

Thanks!

Hubs have been known to cause problems, particularly if they are not
self powered, but even if they are.

 

[Guest]

Hubs have been known to cause problems, particularly if they are not
self powered, but even if they are.

Thanks, Rock, for the info that hubs can be a problem in their own right. Do
you know if the problem is with the USB 2.0 specification, or is it because
some hubs do not comply with the specification?

(I guess it could also be that the software--Windows XP in this
case--doesn't handle handle hubs correctly in all circumstances. Based on
what device manager shows under USB, hubs are a kind of object that XP
recognizes. and perhaps, then, also must manage.)

Sweatice

 

[Rock]

:




Thanks, Rock, for the info that hubs can be a problem in their own right. Do
you know if the problem is with the USB 2.0 specification, or is it because
some hubs do not comply with the specification?

(I guess it could also be that the software--Windows XP in this
case--doesn't handle handle hubs correctly in all circumstances. Based on
what device manager shows under USB, hubs are a kind of object that XP
recognizes. and perhaps, then, also must manage.)

Sweatice

Sorry I don't know why.