i gor a brand new external hard drive for my laptop for backing up some music and other files and i have this problem. when i connect the usb to the laptop the "new hardware wizard" pops up and after trying to install the hard drive with the cd or without it closes saying "your hardware is not installed".i even downloaded some drivers from the inernet but with no luck. after this a message pops at the bottom right with the yellow triangle saying "usb devise not recognized" and no matter how many times i re-connect it the same "not recognized" message comes up. the problem gets more complicated as the hard drive which is not recognized in my laptop, works fine on a couple other laptops i tried it(after i connect it, i get the "your hardware is installed and ready to use"). its important to say that on my laptop is already connected another external hard drive which works fine.the problem is only with the new one which as i said is not recognized on my machine but works fine on any other i tried it. someone advised me to re-install windows on my laptop. is this gonna work? or can you advise me something else? thanks in advance!

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

Did you have another hdd connected when you connected the 'faulty' hdd?

If so, make sure you only have 1 of them connected at any time. Could be that your laptop is not supplying enough power to its usb ports.

Another alternative is to connect a POWERED usb hub to your laptop, then connect the hdd to the powered usb hub.

That's all I can think of since your hdd seems to work on other laptops, and other hdd can connect to your laptop.

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

Which laptop do you have and which driver does your laptop use for that specific USB port?

As feather asked, are you using one port or two and does it need more power if you are only using one port?

Also, have you tried swinging your penis in a clockwise fashion while you connect the external hard drive to your laptop?

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

thanks for the answers guys.. ive got a powered usb hub with 4 usb ports, and when i tried to connect the faulty the other one was already connected. though ive also tried to connect the faulty one on its own.i even tried to connect it straight to the laptop's usb port but still the same problem. also this particular "faulty" HD has 2 usb cables to use if more power is needed,so i dont think power supply is the problem. its proper driving me nuts... i havent tried the penis trick yet,im waiting for everyone to go to bed. any other suggestions?

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

Did you check the laptop manufacturer's site to see if this is a common problem? What USB driver does your laptop use? Have you tried to connect this external to a PC to see what would happen?

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

everything else work OK in that USB port? Thinking of a possible defective driver and/or USB port...

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

i'll never buy another external HD now that I know I can just get a usb adapter and use internals instead.

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

well they're just internals within a casing...so, get an adapter & case cheap enough...

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

update the bios?

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

i've been having problems with I/O errors with my Seagate 250G HD and just found out yesterday that I can get it exchanged for a new one through them. So i'm gonna send it out this week.

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

Hooray!

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

make sure the green arrow is visible in the taskbar when connecting usb, if the hdd is blank, check device manager to see if it needs initialiazing etc, then assign a drive letter and then you should see it in windows

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

actually i think it stemmed from my using it on my PC at the same time I was using it with my Mac. But I don't see why that would've happened. Anyway, it's on it's way there tomorrow.

Re: Hard Drive problem.. please advise!

I have a similar problem and hopefully a little bit more information that could help but haven't solved the problem yet. What is my problem? I have two HDs with two Operating Systems installed on each. So, the hardware is the same and the difference is in the system drivers. A portable device is being recognized by one of the OS and cannot be recognized by the other. The common approach for solving such problems is: First to uninstall the existing driver and then to install the proper driver. But this approach does not work in my case and I guess the reason is some kind of reconfiguration of the USB which has been done by a MS program to configure a USB port for using by Hand Held device. I have found the port had been reconfigured as a network adapter. The aproach to solve this problem as suggested by Creative Lab is similar: First to reconfigure the USB hub/port by uninstalling/installing their drivers - to put the system in its initial status and then to uninstall/install the device drivers. In our case of interest these would be the drivers for a portable device/external HD. As I have already said I haven't done that and the reason is I have not enough time and on another hand I have access to the device via the second OS. But I will certainly do that.