Hello,
I am having some trouble with my new portable hard disk which I have recently purchased. I am connecting it with the USB but the my laptop pc does not seem to detect it. Under the circumstances I do not know what to do. So if someone knows the solution, please help me over come this problem.
Arman Hamilton
If your computer was unable to detect your hard disk drive, try the following workarounds and see if it will fix the issue:
Try plugging in the USB on your computer's USB port. Try on both ports to check if it will work. A new hard drive normally comes with installer so look for a CD. If you can't find it, just wait for the computer to red your external hard drive. It will take time to install so please wait patiently.
If the above step doesn't work, you can bring it back to the store where you purchased it because it might be defected.
You may also try to answer the following questions about your hard drive:
1. Does you hard drive spin without any clicking noise?
If not, check the cables connected to your computer and external hard drive.
2. Does the USB port works when inserting another device such as card reader or flash drive?
If yes, check on the disk behind the Device Manager or System Profiler on Mac. Restart your computer and try to unplug it and then plug it back again when your computer starts.
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Hi arman ,
It seems you are having trouble with your portable hard drive , you must know that hard drive is something which has spinning part in it, the DC motor inside the portable harddisk is of 12 volts ,
The maximum voltage the USB can give is 5 volt DC , it needs a voltage step up to increase it to 12 volt in order for the motor to spin so that Hard disk can read .
So it needs lot of ampere so that it will help to spin the motor , from your problem is see that you are using a single cable , you need to use a "Y" cable so that the ampere will be doubled so that the harddisk motor can spin correctly .
Y cable is something with two USB inputs and one harddisk out .
Thanks Captive, techyv is really a helpful site. I didn't notice that there is a installation CD with the portable disk. I installed it using the CD. When I plug my new portable disk. It worked! Thanks.
If you have a portable or external hard drive, the only way to connect it to your computer is via USB. By default, a standard computer has four USB ports whether a laptop or a desktop computer. Now, if your external hard drive can’t be detected in one USB port, try transferring the cable to another USB port.
Use all available USB ports. Also, check that the USB cable is connected securely to the external hard drive. If this doesn’t work, try using a different USB cable. When you connect your external hard drive to your computer, your system or Microsoft Windows should detect it. If the drive can’t be detected, replace the USB cable with a working one.
The software that comes with your external hard drive is used basically to backup your local hard drive to your external hard drive and to improve or enhance data transfer between your computer and the external hard drive. Whether you install it or not, Microsoft Windows still has to detect the drive.
