External HD not showing up

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

skillfulgil

Commendable
Nov 16, 2016
3
0
1,510
Evening, I had my Iomega 1.5 TB HD just sitting on a book shelf for a year. B4 that, I only had it connected to my Dell 8500 XPS Running Windows 8 which has been in storage for a year. I tried connecting it to a Dell Laptop running Windows 7, and I heard the ring saying it has found new hardware, the pop up saying connected and ready to use, but when I go to start>Computer and try seeing the drive, there's nothing there. I went to Device manager, Drivers, and nothing is there either. I downloaded from Iomega company USB 3 endriver, Iomega encrytion window and installed them I also downloaded fat32 formatter which is useless cause the drive don't turn up. I bought a brand new USB 2.0 Printer Cable for connecting to Laptop, and a new Universal Charger 12 volt . When I turn on the HD, the light flickers as though it's reading what's in it, but never stops flickering. Usually, on my XPS, that only flickered for underv a minute, then the HD was accessible. Is ther any1 that can come up with an idea as to how it can be read? Thank you in advance.
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @skillfulgil!

I believe what @Autocrat suggested is to go to Disk Management in Windows to see how and if the external is recognized there. Posting a screenshot would be really helpful. If it's truly not detected anywhere but it does power up, then I'd recommend you swap the USB Cable and the USB port where it's connected to the laptop. If you still are working on the Win 8 desktop, check how it would get recognized there as well with a different USB cable and ports.
Make sure you backup all your important data from the external drive somewhere else as well. Remember that 'BACKUP' means that you have your data stored in at least two (2) locations. Moving data from your system drive to an...
Sort by date Sort by votes
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @skillfulgil!

I believe what @Autocrat suggested is to go to Disk Management in Windows to see how and if the external is recognized there. Posting a screenshot would be really helpful. If it's truly not detected anywhere but it does power up, then I'd recommend you swap the USB Cable and the USB port where it's connected to the laptop. If you still are working on the Win 8 desktop, check how it would get recognized there as well with a different USB cable and ports.
Make sure you backup all your important data from the external drive somewhere else as well. Remember that 'BACKUP' means that you have your data stored in at least two (2) locations. Moving data from your system drive to an external hard drive is not a backup, unless there is already a duplicate of the file on a different drive. So better be safe than sorry and copy the contents elsewhere, once you gain access to them.

I hope this helps. Keep us posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
A

Aruna_2

Commendable
Jul 13, 2016
13
0
1,520
Yes, it is possible to assign a drive letter by going through the disk management. Just go to the disk management and do a right click on the drive and choose “change drive letter and path” option to assign a new drive name. Thanks!!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom