external hard drive issue

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Futuregrad2184

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May 27, 2014
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I bought a Western Digital external HD a while back. It was working fine for a few months, but in the past week it doesn't seem to connect to my Dell XPS at all. The drive is spinning and the light flashes at first then stays lit. It will make a noise similar to a hard reset once after being connected for about a minute or so. I can't find it in the my computer folder, the autoplay window doesn't show up either.
 
Solution
popatim
open device manager and watch it to see if the drive appears when you attach it.
If it does, right click on it and delete it and the drivers when prompted. Then disconnect the drive. I like to reboot and reattach the drive but rebooting may not be required. Reattaching the drive should cause the drivers to reload fresh.

If it doesn't appear then its possible the usb to sata adapter inside the enclosure has failed. You did not say which size drive you have. Most 2tb and under can be disassembled and attached internally to your pc or reinstalled into another enclosure/dock. Many 3tb + up drives us special usb-sata adpaters and do not work the same when installed internally or in another enclosure/dock. often you can find the right...
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popatim

popatim

Titan
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Dec 2, 2009
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open device manager and watch it to see if the drive appears when you attach it.
If it does, right click on it and delete it and the drivers when prompted. Then disconnect the drive. I like to reboot and reattach the drive but rebooting may not be required. Reattaching the drive should cause the drivers to reload fresh.

If it doesn't appear then its possible the usb to sata adapter inside the enclosure has failed. You did not say which size drive you have. Most 2tb and under can be disassembled and attached internally to your pc or reinstalled into another enclosure/dock. Many 3tb + up drives us special usb-sata adpaters and do not work the same when installed internally or in another enclosure/dock. often you can find the right usb-sata adapter online though and just replace that.

The other possibility is that the drive itself has failed. Hopefully this was just a backup drive and all important data is still on your PC.
 
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