Can't seem to access to my external harddrive

DaveG247

Evening all,

Found my old Western Digital 250GB usb powered external hard drive yesterday which I've now found a use for, however I don't seem to be able to access it via my windows vista laptop, it lights up, the laptop makes the noise it always does when I connect any other usb device to it and I can hear the drive spinning, but nothing shows up when I go into my computer. I've changed the usb lead and tried a different laptop but still no luck. It has been connected to my TV and I'm wondering if that's messed something up. Any ideas as to how to access it (other than a hammer)?

forgotmyname

Not enough power from the USB port to power it?

Does it have a separate power supply?

I have a drive fail on me tonight also. Its in the fridge now...

andrewjf

Device driver issue? Check Western Digital website for latest drivers.

bmewsd

Have to agree with the above posts. It's most likely that the drivers aren't correct and if they are that the drive isn't getting sufficient power just via the USB cable.

The key is to get the model number from the drive itself. Go to the western digital site and download the correct driver for your operating system. If that's not working and the drive is definitely spinning up, then it's likely there's a problem with it.

Good luck.

spud17

DaveG247 wrote: »

.................It has been connected to my TV and I'm wondering if that's messed something up. Any ideas as to how to access it (other than a hammer)?

Some TVs like to format HDs to their own specific file system.
If it has done that, it's possible that Windows is unable to 'read' that particular file system.

DaveG247

spud17 that could be one of the issues, I remember the tv asking to format the drive when I first connected it up, might connect it back up and see if I can record anything.
As far as I know it's usb power only there's no other connection, will have a search on line tomorrow and is if I can find the model number and drivers. Thanks for the advice, ill post an update when I've tried the suggestions. Cheers

grumpycrab

Have you checked whether the disk shows up under Disk Management? Vista may have not given the drive a letter for some reason...
Start -> diskmgmt.msc

bmewsd

DaveG247 wrote: »

spud17 that could be one of the issues, I remember the tv asking to format the drive when I first connected it up, might connect it back up and see if I can record anything.
As far as I know it's usb power only there's no other connection, will have a search on line tomorrow and is if I can find the model number and drivers. Thanks for the advice, ill post an update when I've tried the suggestions. Cheers

Dave. did this drive come out of some form of PVR? these quite often use a proprietary format which isn't readily readable by just plugging it into a pc etc.

if you can provide any more info relating to the device it came from rather than just the disk drive model?

hope this helps

spud17

Dave, don't know how 'techie' you are, but you could use a 'live' linux cd or the 'live' GPartEd cd.

Set your laptop to boot with either of these in the cd drive, plug in the external drive.
If the TV has formatted the drive to something that Windows doesn't recognise, then you *should* be able to views partitions etc.

DaveG247

So I connected the drive to the TV last night and managed to record something and play it back so looks like the drives working ok.

bmewsd - Standard usb drive Western Digital WD2500ME (link WD's site)

grumpycrab - Tried diskmgmt.msc and seemed to have found it

[IMG]http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/<a href=http://imageupload.co.uk/ target=_blank>[/img]

Little bit techie although if anything can be done from that may sort the problem.

Thanks for the replies all
[IMG]http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/<a href=http://img46.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=394103526_HDD_122_392lo.jpg target=_blank>[/img]

S0litaire

The drive is probably in a Linux friendly format rather than "proprietary"

So if you want to get your hands dirty and dive into using a "Live-CD" of Ubuntu or other Linux OS

Windows (Microsoft) refuses to acknowledge any File system other than NTFS and FAT. ^_^