external USB HDD not seen by windows

[Ian R]

Hi

I have 3 external drives (USB) which all work fine on most systems.

However once in a while I find that one (and sometimes all) of the drives
are not recognised by a particular PC.

This is inconvenient to say the least as I use the drives to transfer large
files for my work. When visiting new clients I never know if my drives will
work on their PC.

Sometimes when I plug them in one of the following happens:

1. Nothing
2. The Drive appears in device manager but dont show up in "my computer".

It can happen under Win98/ME/2000/XP

So just wondered what I can do to try and cure this?

8 out of 10 times they work fine but its on the two occasions it doesnt its
a real pain.

Thanks for any info.

Ian

 

[Rein]

Ian,

Sometimes the computer's USB does not have enough power, and thus
the external drive will not be seen.
Have you tried to power the external drive with external power
supply?

 

[Ian R]

Ian,

Sometimes the computer's USB does not have enough power, and thus
the external drive will not be seen.
Have you tried to power the external drive with external power
supply?

Hi Rein

Thanks for replying.

All my external cases use laptop drives and there's no provision to use an
external p/s.

I can understand that an older PC might have this problem but I wouldnt
expect it to happen on a shiny new Dell as I have found.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Rein]

ian,

I have a new HP computer, and in the front there are two usb
connections. One of them, I am able to connect my external hard drive
and the computer will see it and assign drive letters; the other one
does not have a enough power.

As you can see, even a new computer's usb connection may not have
enough power to power the external hard drive..

hope it helps,
Reinhad

 

[tccp123]

The problem you refer to is a common one with Dell computers, especially laptops. The supplier I use has a notation in the description for each external USB disk stating "not guaranteed to work with Dell computers because of their non standard hardware" (or words to that effect).

I too have one of these disks and it consistently fails to work in Dell laptops, of which we have many.