My external hard drive used to give me no problems but now I can't even read it anymore.?

Question

I have a freecom 160 gb drive which worked fine till one day a week after buying a new freecom external drive it simply didnt read it, not on my laptop or PC. It hasnt suffered any knocks or hits and I have looked at device manager to see it listed as cypress AT2LP RC42 but when I try to reinstall it says that it cannot. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You said you went to the Device Driver and saw it listed -- did you check properties to see if it was "working properly"?

cl Start
cl Settings
cl Control Panel
cl System
cl Hardware
cl Device Driver
R-cl on the item to be checked. Click Properties.
That will tell you if the item is working properly.

If it is, and you have a need to update the driver:
Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Hardward, Device Driver
click the icon for the item you want
click the “update driver” button on the toolbar.

If you get no satisfaction here, I would uninstall, restart, then try again to install.

Answer 2

the first guy is right. but remeber that all drives have a life cycle of about 50000 start stop cycles. so if your drive is constantly being turned on and off or you have your system set to turn off drive when not in use you are rapidly killing the drive. it is better to leave the drive running for as long as you can.

Also you may likt to remove the drive from the external case and install the drive directly in your desktop system. it should be a relatively simple process. however if the case on the freecom is one that clicks together and not screwed together you could end up damaging the case.
don't worry if you damage the external case of the drive you can get a new drive enclosure from most good etailers such as www.dabs.com.

in your case though i would strongly suggest attempting to roll back the driver to a previous version.
failing that if that does not work try restoring your computer to a day when you know the drive worked.
if that solves the problem job done create a new restore point.
if however that fails to solve the problem then you are going to have to go to the freecom website and see if there is a driver or firmaware update for the external drive.
in the case that no drivers are available, first try the steps listed by the first guy. and then follow the suggestiion i made. between us this should solve your problem.
in device manager that cypress reference just means that that is the driver the drive is using.

so try clicking in order the following:
Start
Control Panel
Administrative tools
Computer Management
Disk Management
now in the window to the right you should see the drives on your system listed by drive letter and the assigned name.
now right click on the drive, click properties, Tools, on error checking click check now, click automatically fix file system errors, click scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors click start
now go take a break while the scan completes, force the drive to dismount if you need to or set to run the scan at next system start up..
allow the check to finish
with luck your drive should be running again. if not then the drive may have failed in which case if the drive is under guarantee you need to take it to the retailer where you purchased it for a free replacement. if out of guarantee then try first contacting freecom to ask them for advice and see if as a good will gesture they will attempt recovery of your data and replace the drive.
as they are a big company they may agree to do this but it is not guaranteed you need to be cheeky and ask them.
failing that your data may be not be lost you can try getting a proffessional data recovery firm to recover your data but this is an expensive option as if the drives circuits have failed or the drive is not responding to commands your drive may have to be disaassembled and the recorded data surface placed in a new drive and copied to yet another drive.

for future reference you should be buying seagate drives as they tend to perforn best and have the longest life span. (most reliable)
conversly western digital tend to be the worst on life span (reliability)

speaking with experiance of using both brands.
and having drive problem though not with the freecom drive housing.

good luck.

Answer 3

I know nothing about computers, but I got a Free com
external hard drive and I found that it was not much good for what I wanted so I got it installed inside the computer, but I was told that it would have been better just to install an internal drive in the first place as Free com are not very good anyway. I had only a 6 gb hard drive at the start.

Answer 4

That previous force perhaps already be fried. attempt and detect a IDE-to-USB cable. would artwork extra useful. i've got had themes with enclosures previously. even nonetheless it extra effective than in all probability feels like the force is undesirable. The Syko Ward