External hard drive not working?

Question

Hi everyone,

I have got a problem with my external hard disk. When I plug it in to the USB, the device is recognised, but before the system reads the files and show the hard disk as a storage device in "My Computer", it comes up with an error message, saying that "hardware may have problems" etc (I tried it in 3 computers so far, and the above message appeared on one of them). I suspect that the problem occured when I had a "critical system error", that resulted in my computer to shut down instantly, and while my hard disk was connected and operating - playing music - (the hard disk was working properly until I got this error -when I rebooted my system the disk was not working so I presume something such as disk corruption happened then -).

Any ideas what the problem could be and how to solve it? Is it the disk or could be a disk case connectivity failure?

I would like first to retrieve all my files from the disk, and secondly to get it work again!

Thanks in advance.

Orestis

Answer 1

I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.
Some drive problems can be easily fixed by yourself using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful. Try this site, if you can get what is required.

Answer 2

Well, if it only happens on the one computer it's probably something with that computer itself. Try updating your USB drivers and also the driver for that external hard drive.

Answer 3

If your computer is not working properly while you are working on it, it could be a problem with device drivers, hardware or software.
Detailed instructions at http://tinyurl.com/yk5zpr