Hi guys , the mrs has got a 80gig external hard disk (Tooq brand) and it works fine on her tower pc, but shes tried it on our lap top and its not being recognized ,it makes that binging noise when you connect to a USB , but nowt else !(both running XP so we took it to a freinds and tried it on his 2 pcs (both Vista) and its not working on those either ??? wtf !!! has anybody got any idea what it could be ?,the harddrive is lighting up and its ticking so it seems to be working ok
cheers
Windy
Full Version: Problem With External Hard Drive
just a stab in the dark till scrib gets here .
have you got a driver disk, i know most ext drives don't need 'em but if you have it, it might be one of the first thing to try
or you could try going into computer management :- left click start, then right click 'my computer' >manage (on xp) then see if it's enabled in device manager.
(hope i got that bit right )
have you got a driver disk, i know most ext drives don't need 'em but if you have it, it might be one of the first thing to try
or you could try going into computer management :- left click start, then right click 'my computer' >manage (on xp) then see if it's enabled in device manager.
(hope i got that bit right )
no there wasnt a disk with it tremont , ive tried looking in my computer - manage - but its not there !
First of all - ¿does the drive appear in Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management and does it appear in Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware?
e²a: This is what Tremont-Salby asked you, but I'm afraid that your answer isn't too clear to me.
e²a: This is what Tremont-Salby asked you, but I'm afraid that your answer isn't too clear to me.
¿Also, do you happen to have Daemon Tools or any other drive emulation software installed on that particular machine?
If its a 2.5" Drive that requires power as well as Data from USB then it may not be getting enough power from the USB bus on a laptop.
Does your drive come with an external power source?
Does your drive come with an external power source?
QUOTE (naahsty @ Oct 21 2009, 01:56 PM) 
If its a 2.5" Drive that requires power as well as Data from USB then it may not be getting enough power from the USB bus on a laptop.
Does your drive come with an external power source?
Does your drive come with an external power source?
yeah theres a socket in the back for power but it didnt come with a cable
QUOTE (Scribb|e @ Oct 21 2009, 01:52 PM)
First of all - ¿does the drive appear in Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management and does it appear in Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware?
e²a: This is what Tremont-Salby asked you, but I'm afraid that your answer isn't too clear to me.
e²a: This is what Tremont-Salby asked you, but I'm afraid that your answer isn't too clear to me.
no scribble its not showing up anywhere , not even a logo in your tray at the bottom
its got virtual clone drive on it , is that what you mean ?
¿Does it sound like the drive is spinning properly when it's plugged into the PCs that it doesn't work on?
¿What is the device being recognised as after it's gone 'bing'?
If it goes 'bing', then it *must* be being recognised as *something*, either in the icon near the clock, or certainly in the Control Panel's Hardware section.
¿What is the device being recognised as after it's gone 'bing'?
If it goes 'bing', then it *must* be being recognised as *something*, either in the icon near the clock, or certainly in the Control Panel's Hardware section.
QUOTE (Scribb|e @ Oct 21 2009, 02:07 PM)
¿Does it sound like the drive is spinning properly when it's plugged into the PCs that it doesn't work on?
¿What is the device being recognised as after it's gone 'bing'?
If it goes 'bing', then it *must* be being recognised as *something*, either in the icon near the clock, or certainly in the Control Panel's Hardware section.
¿What is the device being recognised as after it's gone 'bing'?
If it goes 'bing', then it *must* be being recognised as *something*, either in the icon near the clock, or certainly in the Control Panel's Hardware section.
i can hear the drive clicking and the power lights on on the front , i got the logo to say something was plugged in the usb port then it disappeared and said that it was unrecognizable
its going out the window in a minute !!!
now its doing fuck all !! no logo nothing
It does sound like it's a potential power issue actually - ¿what size is the drive - 2.5" or what?
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and
try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it.
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and
try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it.
It does sound like it's a potential power issue actually - ¿what size is the drive - 2.5" or what?
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it - you can get those pretty cheaply these days, like £10-15.
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it - you can get those pretty cheaply these days, like £10-15.
QUOTE (Scribb|e @ Oct 21 2009, 02:21 PM)
It does sound like it's a potential power issue actually - ¿what size is the drive - 2.5" or what?
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it - you can get those pretty cheaply these days, like £10-15.
One other thing I might try is to see what USB drivers your motherboard is using and say they were chipset-specific ones, to either remove them and try the M$ ones, or to see if there's any updated versions to be had.
What voltage and type of connector does the drive have on it - it might be something commonly available.
You should always power stuff like that when it's USB - the USB spec just doesn't provide enough power to drive heavier things like magnetic platter hard drives - the USB spec only allows for 5V @ 500ma.
A powered USB hub might work with it if you can't get power going to it - you can get those pretty cheaply these days, like £10-15.
its a 2.5" drive , ive got a box of cables ill see if i can find one
why would it work fine on her tower pc tho ?
cheers scribble !
i cant really do windows updates if you know what i mean
Some PC motherboards can provide over the USB standard power spec, so some things work on them without external power that otherwise wouldn't.
Running a Win machine that isn't getting updates is a *really* bad idea - you're asking to for it to become a botnet zombie SPAM spewer with keyloggers and allsorts on it.
Even if you don't install the WGA, M$ will still allow you to download and install all the latest security updates, just not any of the others.
It's not Win Update that you would use to update the USB drivers anyway - you would look in the Hardware section and see yourself what USB drivers are currently installed. If they're just M$ standard ones, then that's that. If they're chipset-specific ones, then you could replace them with the standard M$ ones and/or Google around to see if there's a newer version of them available for download.
Running a Win machine that isn't getting updates is a *really* bad idea - you're asking to for it to become a botnet zombie SPAM spewer with keyloggers and allsorts on it.
Even if you don't install the WGA, M$ will still allow you to download and install all the latest security updates, just not any of the others.
It's not Win Update that you would use to update the USB drivers anyway - you would look in the Hardware section and see yourself what USB drivers are currently installed. If they're just M$ standard ones, then that's that. If they're chipset-specific ones, then you could replace them with the standard M$ ones and/or Google around to see if there's a newer version of them available for download.
cheers lads
Hi Family, Ive had this before, i agree its the power, not having enough current from the usb bus,
In my experience its usually down to the chipset on your mobo, for instance if its a via chipset they are
well known to not give enough power, the intel chipset however always seems to work,
I can only surmise the via chipsets cant go over 500ma and external drives must need slightly more,
If your drive is tick tick tick then its not getting enough power for sure,
scribbs idea will work as long as the external hub has its own seperate power supply,
or you could try using a seperate power supply on the external drive,
Hope everyone's well
da stak
Edit to add.........And to think the usb bus can support 128 devices is kinda silly when one 2.5 drive kills it
In my experience its usually down to the chipset on your mobo, for instance if its a via chipset they are
well known to not give enough power, the intel chipset however always seems to work,
I can only surmise the via chipsets cant go over 500ma and external drives must need slightly more,
If your drive is tick tick tick then its not getting enough power for sure,
scribbs idea will work as long as the external hub has its own seperate power supply,
or you could try using a seperate power supply on the external drive,
Hope everyone's well
da stak
Edit to add.........And to think the usb bus can support 128 devices is kinda silly when one 2.5 drive kills it
Well, to be fair - USB was designed for keyboards, mice, powered scanners and printers &c., it was never designed to be used with unpowered high-drain items like miniature magnetic hard-drives or for charging mobile phones and iPods quickly. 
Magnetic hard drives especially have very large startup current requirements that they require to start the platter(s) spinning - this is often easily well over the 100mA (single device) or 500mA (total possible power) that in-spec USB ports can provide.
From Wiki
Magnetic hard drives especially have very large startup current requirements that they require to start the platter(s) spinning - this is often easily well over the 100mA (single device) or 500mA (total possible power) that in-spec USB ports can provide.
QUOTE
Power
The USB 1.x and 2.0 specifications provide a 5 V supply on a single wire from which connected USB devices may draw power. The specification provides for no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V±5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines. For USB 2.0 the voltage supplied by low-powered hub ports is 4.4 V to 5.25 V.[30]
A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and was raised to 150 mA in USB 3.0. A maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) can be drawn from a port in USB 2.0, which was raised to 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0. There are two types of devices: low-power and high-power. Low-power devices draw at most 1 unit load, with minimum operating voltage of 4.4 V in USB 2.0, and 4 V in USB 3.0. High-power devices draw the maximum number of unit loads supported by the standard. All devices default as low-power but the device's software may request high-power as long as the power is available on the providing bus.[3]
A bus-powered hub is initialized at 1 unit load and transitions to maximum unit loads after hub configuration is obtained. Any device connected to the hub will draw 1 unit load regardless of the current draw of devices connected to other ports of the hub (i.e one device connected on a four-port hub will only draw 1 unit load despite the fact that all unit loads are being supplied to the hub).[3]
A self-powered hub will supply maximum supported unit loads to any device connected to it. A battery-powered hub may supply maximum unit loads to ports. In addition, the VBUS will supply 1 unit load upstream for communication if parts of the Hub are powered down.
Non-standard devices
A number of USB devices require more power than is permitted by the specifications for a single port. This is common for external hard and optical disc drives, and generally for devices with motors or lamps. Such devices can be used with an external power supply of adequate rating, which is allowed by the standard, or by means of a dual-input USB cable, one input of which is used for power and data transfer, the other solely for power, which makes the device a non-standard USB device. Some external hubs may, in practice, supply more power to USB devices than required by the specification but a standard-compliant device may not depend on this.
Some non-standard USB devices use the 5 V power supply without participating in a proper USB network, negotiating power draws with the host interface. These are usually referred to as USB decorations. The typical example is a USB-powered reading light; fans, mug heaters (though some may include USB hubs[40]), battery chargers (particularly for mobile telephones), miniature vacuum cleaners, miniature lava lamps and even toy missile launchers are available. In most cases, these items contain no digital circuitry, and thus are not Standard compliant USB devices at all. This can theoretically cause problems with some computers; prior to the Battery Charging Specification, the USB specification required that devices connect in a low-power mode (100 mA maximum) and state how much current they need, before switching, with the host's permission, into high-power mode.
In addition to limiting the total average power used by the device, the USB specification limits the inrush current (ie, that used to charge decoupling and filter capacitors) when the device is first connected. Otherwise, connecting a device could cause problems with the host's internal power. Also, USB devices are required to automatically enter ultra low-power suspend mode when the USB host is suspended. Nevertheless, many USB host interfaces do not cut off the power supply to USB devices when they are suspended since resuming from the suspended state would become a lot more complicated if they did.
The USB 1.x and 2.0 specifications provide a 5 V supply on a single wire from which connected USB devices may draw power. The specification provides for no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V±5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines. For USB 2.0 the voltage supplied by low-powered hub ports is 4.4 V to 5.25 V.[30]
A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and was raised to 150 mA in USB 3.0. A maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) can be drawn from a port in USB 2.0, which was raised to 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0. There are two types of devices: low-power and high-power. Low-power devices draw at most 1 unit load, with minimum operating voltage of 4.4 V in USB 2.0, and 4 V in USB 3.0. High-power devices draw the maximum number of unit loads supported by the standard. All devices default as low-power but the device's software may request high-power as long as the power is available on the providing bus.[3]
A bus-powered hub is initialized at 1 unit load and transitions to maximum unit loads after hub configuration is obtained. Any device connected to the hub will draw 1 unit load regardless of the current draw of devices connected to other ports of the hub (i.e one device connected on a four-port hub will only draw 1 unit load despite the fact that all unit loads are being supplied to the hub).[3]
A self-powered hub will supply maximum supported unit loads to any device connected to it. A battery-powered hub may supply maximum unit loads to ports. In addition, the VBUS will supply 1 unit load upstream for communication if parts of the Hub are powered down.
Non-standard devices
A number of USB devices require more power than is permitted by the specifications for a single port. This is common for external hard and optical disc drives, and generally for devices with motors or lamps. Such devices can be used with an external power supply of adequate rating, which is allowed by the standard, or by means of a dual-input USB cable, one input of which is used for power and data transfer, the other solely for power, which makes the device a non-standard USB device. Some external hubs may, in practice, supply more power to USB devices than required by the specification but a standard-compliant device may not depend on this.
Some non-standard USB devices use the 5 V power supply without participating in a proper USB network, negotiating power draws with the host interface. These are usually referred to as USB decorations. The typical example is a USB-powered reading light; fans, mug heaters (though some may include USB hubs[40]), battery chargers (particularly for mobile telephones), miniature vacuum cleaners, miniature lava lamps and even toy missile launchers are available. In most cases, these items contain no digital circuitry, and thus are not Standard compliant USB devices at all. This can theoretically cause problems with some computers; prior to the Battery Charging Specification, the USB specification required that devices connect in a low-power mode (100 mA maximum) and state how much current they need, before switching, with the host's permission, into high-power mode.
In addition to limiting the total average power used by the device, the USB specification limits the inrush current (ie, that used to charge decoupling and filter capacitors) when the device is first connected. Otherwise, connecting a device could cause problems with the host's internal power. Also, USB devices are required to automatically enter ultra low-power suspend mode when the USB host is suspended. Nevertheless, many USB host interfaces do not cut off the power supply to USB devices when they are suspended since resuming from the suspended state would become a lot more complicated if they did.
From Wiki
Just check in the load of cables u got with it that one of them is not a power one which draws power from your keyboard socket (ps2 style small round circle thing)
I have seen a few 2.5" usb drives which come with a pass-though keyboard connector with a power lead off that - it still lets you plug the keyboard in but steals a little power as well.
I normally try to power any usb device with its own power source as i have had to deal with the odd laptop which has had its usb bits fried when a device has pulled more juice than it should.
I have seen a few 2.5" usb drives which come with a pass-though keyboard connector with a power lead off that - it still lets you plug the keyboard in but steals a little power as well.
I normally try to power any usb device with its own power source as i have had to deal with the odd laptop which has had its usb bits fried when a device has pulled more juice than it should.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.