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I have a 2.5" USB 3 external drive of WD Elements brand, bought a little over a year ago. I remember it worked well enough back then, but now I'm having a very hard time getting anything to detect it after attaching it. I have tried connecting it to 5 different hosts: 1. My main desktop PC (runs Windows 7, has only USB 2, old mobo) 2. A Lenovo laptop running Windows 8.1, has USB 3 ports 3. An Acer tablet running Windows 8.1, seems to have USB 3 4. An ISP-supplied router/media server thing that's supposed to have file serving capabilities, unknown USB version 5. An Asus RT-N56U router, advertises USB ports as USB 2 On all the hosts, the drive's power lamp lights up, and the disk clearly spins up. However, none of the Windows machines has it show up in Device Manager. I'm positive I had it working on my desktop PC a year ago. The ISP-supplied router has at least once detected it, but either its file server is very poorly implemented, or something went wrong accessing it, because browsing to any folders on it through the Windows file share seemed to cause hanging, and eventually just seeing the folder as empty. The Asus router detects the drive fine, and I can browse its content through the Windows share it presents. I can see the contents I expect, including the System Volume Information folder hinting that it has definitely been connected directly to a Windows PC at one point. However I'm not actually using the Asus router since getting it to work with the ISP-supplied one (which also has the ADSL model function) is a massive problem, so using that router to access the drive would be pretty silly. (I've also forgotten my admin credentials to it, I'll need to look the hard reset procedure up somewhere.) Lastly, the drive is enclosed in clamped plastic with no obvious way of getting the drive out and attach it through SATA or whatever. Any ideas on what might be going wrong and perhaps ways to fix it? Yes I have tried googling for the problem, and I find only questions, no answers. nielsm fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 18:18
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| # ? Apr 30, 2024 05:00 |
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What OS were you using when you last accessed it properly? I've noticed some external HDs have issues with different OS versions for some reason.
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Nov 4, 2014 00:27
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Whatever OS that Asus router runs. As mentioned, of all the potential hosts I have access to, it's the only one that will even detect it. Actually I do have a MacBook that I haven't tested it on yet, might be worth a try. It doesn't seem to be a matter of file system, since none of the Windows machines even have the physical device show up in Device Manager nor make the "device connected" sound. My own best idea for what the problem might be is the power supply, i.e. that the drive might not be getting enough power on the USB bus, but then it should still work fine on the Lenovo laptop at least, since it does have USB 3 ports which ought to supply enough power.
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Nov 4, 2014 08:22
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Perhaps the drive is simply failing in some strange way. After leaving it unplugged for about a day, I just plugged it into my Windows desktop and it was detected fine, I could browse it etc. However when I then unplugged it and plugged it back in shortly after, it again refused to be detected.
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Nov 4, 2014 22:23
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Have you tried different USB cables?
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Nov 5, 2014 02:42
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