so like a month ago, i plugged my external into my computer and it made the usb noise, but it never showed up. i dicked around with it for a while (turning it on and off, plugging it in and out a bunch of times, restarting) and it showed up. then it worked for a while, but last week it started doing the same thing, where it would make the noise, but not show up on my computer.

so i think im fucked and i bring it into work to see if we have anything i could try to fix it with. i plug it into an xp machine.. works fine. plug it into a 2000 machine.. works fine. shit, i even plugged it into the mac with xp and worked and it worked with os x

so obviously, its a problem with my computer and i dont know what to do. drivers? somethin? help?

 

sounds like the usb port is bad. have you tried other ports?

 

oh yeh, i forgot that. tried all three on computer, nothin.

i tried my mouse in them and it works.

 

same thing here.

I have a Western Digital 500gb MyBook. It works 20% of the time on one machine only.



This may sounds stupid, but try plugging the power directly into the wall. This might work.

 

When you plug the drive in, go to device manager. Do you have a yellow exclamation mark for anything?

Also, go to disk managment. Does the drive show to be initialized?

I'd probably try uninstalling your USB drivers, restart, and re-install.

 

.

 

it was plugged directly into the wall at my house (where my laptop that im having trouble with is), but it was plugged into power strips here at work.

ill try that when i get home, im at work right now. thanks :thumbup:

 

Not stupid. Some usb ports don't give enough power. That is why sometimes you will get an external HDD that has 2 USB plugs at an end. It is to provide more power.

If you have an external power adapter, you should definitely use that.

 

oh i do, its always plugged in

 

Remove the hard drive from the external case (it should be IDE) and install it internally - see if it is being read properly there. May be a drive issue. If not, at least ya know it is USB related.