Gaming Problems with external HDD...

[MigueelDnd]

Hi everybody, I hope someone could lend me a hand here:
See, I have had this ADATA Classic Series CH94 2.5” HDD for quite some time. I use it to run backups on my Wii and it works perfectly fine, but the problem is that my PC doesn't want to read it now. The first time I connected it to my PC it worked fine, but then the next time I connected it, it didn't work. I've tried formatting it many times but it doesn't work in my PC, I say that because I have tried it in other PCs and it works like a charm. Yeah, my PC is the one with the problem.
I have Windows XP (SP3), and I think I have my drivers up to date. I probably need to give more information, just tell me and I'll write it up here.

So, is there anything I can do? Thanks for reading.

Oh and my PC is a desktop PC.

 

[sergster1]

Lol I just had a similar problem with my HDD last night. After transferring my entire collection of wii games to my HDD it literally just crashed and i had 160 GB's of unallocation space. I went into Diskpart and formatted it from there and readded the partitions. Just because windows explorer doesnt see it doesnt mean windows doesnt recognize it. Its there but invisible cause you cant add anything to it.

 

[moose3]

Are you by chance connecting the drive through a USB hub or some other port splitter? If so try directly attaching it to the comp's USB ports, or try a different one, it may not be getting enough power, or if it's a desktop, you can get adapters so you can connect it internally as a last resort.

You can also see if windows does recognize it but is having problems reading it buy going to the control panel and looking in the device manager under the USB devices or in administrative tools>computer management>storage>disk management.

Good luck.

 

[MigueelDnd]

Lol I just had a similar problem with my HDD last night. After transferring my entire collection of wii games to my HDD it literally just crashed and i had 160 GB's of unallocation space. I went into Diskpart and formatted it from there and readded the partitions. Just because windows explorer doesnt see it doesnt mean windows doesnt recognize it. Its there but invisible cause you cant add anything to it.
As you said, probably Windows recognizes it but doesn't show it. Who knows why the heck it doesn't show up, though.

QUOTE(moose3 @ Aug 19 2011, 07:05 PM) Are you by chance connecting the drive through a USB hub or some other port splitter? If so try directly attaching it to the comp's USB ports, or try a different one, it may not be getting enough power, or if it's a desktop, you can get adapters so you can connect it internally as a last resort.
You can also see if windows does recognize it but is having problems reading it buy going to the control panel and looking in the device manager under the USB devices or in administrative tools>computer management>storage>disk management.
Good luck.

I usually connect my USB devices by what I think is a port splitter and they work fine. But for this HDD I tried the normal USB ports, EVERY single one and I even tried connecting it as an internal HDD. Nothing worked.
I tried Computer Management Tools (again) but the HDD doesn't show up and I even tried to update the drivers but it says they're up to date.

Thanks for your replies, any other ideas?

 

[MigueelDnd]

Any ideas? Or am I a lost case? I really hope I'm wrong and there's something I can do...

 

[moose3]

Even taken from the enclosure/adapter and connected internally and it still doesn't show up but loads fine in another computer... shesh

2 other longshot ideas:

1) Check and see in device manager if there are any error marks or unknown devices, I think you can also force it to show unattached devices as well, maybe the driver got corrupted, or just removing it and letting it re-identify the device will help? Might be a driver for the HD itself and the ata-USB bridge

2) Try an Ubuntu live CD/USB and seeing if that can recognize the drive, sometimes linux can see things when windows is being a b!tch.

Dumb question (since I don't know about the wii and external drives to load backups): was the drive by chance formatted in a special way to load the backups after you initially connected it to the comp and this particular comp hasn't had the proper software to read the drive whereas the other comps you have tried it with have had the software installed?

Good luck.