My new WD portable hard drive isnt working?

Rei

I connect my new 500gb WD portable hard drive to my Vista computer but it doesnt show up in my C:/ folder...
It IS vista compatible.

Answer
The current WD external drives have an interesting feature--they sense the 5V power line on the USB port and use that to switch on and off. The downside of that is that if you plug it into a powered USB hub that's always on, so is the drive.

Conversely, if there is a problem with the 5V line on the USB port the HD is plugged into, the drive NEVER comes on. Are the drive activity lights coming on or flashing at all? If not, there might be a problem with power to the port or the power to the USB ports in general. Try it on different system--or with a different USB cable.

The drive won't show up in the C: folder anyway--it will have it's own drive letter in the "My Computer" listing.

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Did the passport (portable hard drive) actually work on my laptop?

shygirl202

So i recently bought a portable hard drive, my passport. i removed all the information from my laptop and transferred it to the passport. then i cleared my laptop with the disk that came with it when i first bought it, and started it fresh with no information that wasn't essential for it to work. anyways the first day after i cleared it, my laptop was working very well, and going pretty fast. but then it started to get slow and my audio is horrible now. it makes loud annoying sounds, so im guessing its pretty much ruined. my question is that i want to know if the passport i bought to create space on my laptop actually was worth it. or is my laptop in its worst conditions ever because it is simply old? my laptop is a toshiba brand and is 3 years old. i greatly appreciate your advice.

Answer
The pasport is an additional hard drive, its just an external hard drive. You might have multiple hard drives on a desktop computer, but generally laptops only have one internal hard drive. Did you connect the passport to your laptop after re-installing or using the recovery CD to determine if you operating system recognizes what is written on the passport?

Three to five years is the life expectancy of a laptop. Sad but true. I have four legacy laptops that still perform well, but I have adjusted to the quicker pace of my one laptop and two netbooks.

What you may be experiencing is a failing hard drive. It may not be spinning at a consistent speed that meets the drive manufacturer's specifications. Are you a heavy computer user?

There is software available to check the health of your hard drive. Some is freeware and other software you can purchase third party. If you have a local computer shop that you frequent they should be able to test the hard drive.

The passport is a nice additional piece of equipment to have. I have one for each laptop and netbook for backup of personal files.

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my portable hard drive dosent work on my computer any more?

Some Guy y

my verbatim JH8809 portable hard drive wont work any more,
i pluged it into the computer and i can see the hard drive starting up but nothing comes up on the computer, i tried going to computer management but nothings there

any1 know what to do???
i have alot of important stuff in there pleasssssssssseeeeeeeeeeee help me

Answer
i hate to say it but it sounds as though the hard drive has reached the end of it's life. does it make a ticking noise?...or perhaps grinding?
there really isn't much you can do. try a system restore. [it probably won't work]

follow this path:

1/ start
2/ all programs
3/ accessories
4/ system tools
5/ system restore

a new window will open. click on "restore my computer to an earlier time" then hit next.
choose a date prior to the start of your problems, and follow prompts. be aware that this will reverse any changes you have made to your pc in the intervening time, but items contained in folders will remain unchanged. when pc reboots it will take a couple of minutes before you can use the desktop and start menu again. this is quite normal and you should not be tempted to try to interrupt the restore process.
if you manage to get the hard drive icon back into "my computer", you should then do a disk check.

follow this path:

1/ start
2/ my computer
3/ right click on hard drive icon and hit "properties"
4/ click on "tools"
5/ click on "error checking" and "check now"
6/ a new window opens, check the boxes for "automatically fix file system errors" and "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors", click on start.

if you have got this far, then a disk check can take many hours, depending on the size of the disk. you should be allowing around 1 hour per 100 gigs. NEVER INTERRUPT A DISK CHECK!!!...LET IT RUN IT'S COURSE, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY TAKE.

i really hope that this works for you, but i have a feeling it is all over for this drive. in future make sure you have at least 2 back-ups. good luck.

Can I use a portable hard drive?

portiarayl

The hard drive in my computer doesn't work, so I have to buy another. Can I just buy an external one or do I need an internal one?

Answer
Since your internal drive is connected using a SATA connection and an external is connected via USB an internal hard drive works faster so it's recommended that you get an internal hard drive to install your operating system and other applications on. External drives are usually for file storage. Also your BIOS will most probably have a problem booting from your external drive as it looks for an internal drive to boot your operating system from and it's your operating system that allows you to connect your external hard drive using the USB drivers.

So no, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to get by with an external HD alone.

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Does it work if you install a game onto a portable hard drive?

my portable hard drive is not working image

SmileyMile

So basically I'm feeling quite reminiscent about sims 2, and I want to play it again, but it's not installed to my new laptop. Last time it slowed the laptop down loads so I was wondering, if I installed all the play files to my portable hard drive, would it work? I remove the hard drive and use it for my photos and stuff too but I wouldn't play sims on any other computer, I just don't want to clog up the laptop hard drive. Any help?

Answer
yes it would but its the ram that slows the pc down putting it on a portable hd will make it that little but faster though, but it would not work on other computers unless they have the sims2 in there registry .Rad

What is a normal/good price for portable hard drive data recovery?

Man

Got to get data from 3 portable hard drives that stopped working properly and I don't want to get ripped off. All three get power and then blink or beep and the computer doesn't recognize them.

Also if anyone knows of a place in Los Angeles I would really appreciate it.

Answer
It depends on what is wrong with them. I'd guesstimate from $300-1500 a piece from a professional lab. You can compare prices at ontrack, gillware and drivesavers the top 3 data recovery labs and see who comes out cheapest. Generally it will be Gillware though, they also offer free evaluations and have an online estimating tool.

Before you do that you can pull the drives out of their enclosures and try hooking them up directly to a computer or try them in a new enclosure.

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Getting a portable hard drive to work at school?

my portable hard drive is not working image

xboxmaster

Im trying to get a portable hard drive to work at school to play games. When i plug it into the usb slot and power it on, it wont let me use it. It detects it as volume and i am unable to use it without administrator rights. Anyway to use the hard drive here still?

Answer
no, the computer is locked down via the administrator account.
the only way to get to your games is from a bootable live linux cd.
then you could copy your games from your portable drive to the windows drive, then reboot into windows again and use the games.

Does it work if you install a game onto a portable hard drive?

SmileyMile

So basically I'm feeling quite reminiscent about sims 2, and I want to play it again, but it's not installed to my new laptop. Last time it slowed the laptop down loads so I was wondering, if I installed all the play files to my portable hard drive, would it work? I remove the hard drive and use it for my photos and stuff too but I wouldn't play sims on any other computer, I just don't want to clog up the laptop hard drive. Any help?

Answer
yes it would but its the ram that slows the pc down putting it on a portable hd will make it that little but faster though, but it would not work on other computers unless they have the sims2 in there registry .Rad

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why will my portable hard drive not work?

my portable hard drive is not working image

Coral S

my portable hard drive is not working.when i plug it into my computer it says i will have to loose all the memory on it for it to work again?? i cant loose the work i have on it? can u help me asap?

Answer
Try a different PC
=
Loose?
-
Is the portable harddrive full?
Have you scanned the harddrive frequently for virus/malware?

What type of portable hard drive work for my kenwood?

lancefrida

I have a Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X692 model. I have the usb adapter and am wanting to hook up a portable hard drive to it, but have been having some trouble. I went to a site explaining all of the requirements for the usb drive and my friends portable hard drive met all of the requirements but did not work. I am wanting to find out what type of portable hard drive do i need to use?

Answer
The USB port enables connection and control of a portable USB mass-storage class device. The USB port is compatible with all USB mass storage class devices that support the FAT16 or FAT32 file system. Your USB device should only have a maximum of 8 directory levels, 255 folders, and 255 files per folder with a maximum of 65,025 files and folders.

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