PC quit recognizing EHD

[blugrassboy]

i have an i-omega (ehd) external hard drive. 1tb. it worked fine for about a month. one day, the blue light quit working, and the pc show it as even plugged. i can feel and hear the ehd running, disc spinning. when i FIRST plug it up, the light IS on, and pc DOES recognize, but by time it shows the drive on "my computer," light goes out, and won't show it.....please help, i have all kinds of data on that hd......thank you!

[Sterling_Aug]

Sounds like the drive controller has died in the external enclosure. I would buy a new neclosure for $20 and move the hard drive to the new one.

[Midknyte]

1 month old? did you try getting a warranty replacement?

[BipolarBill]

Not enough info.

1. Is this a laptop? If it is, try unplugging all power and removing the battery for a few seconds.

2. Does the drive work on other PCs?

3. Is the drive USB?

4. If it is USB, do all other USB devices work properly?

5. Have you recently added another USB drive *of any type* (flash, memory card)? If so, the new drive may have simply stolen the drive letter. The fix may be as simple as changing the drive letter for the EHD in Disk Management. Disk Management is the first place to look when you have any drive problems. It's in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.

[blugrassboy]

it is a month old. problem is, i bought it on ebay, and the guy acts like i bought it "as-is," even though it was new and sealed. (i learned my lesson).

i tried the ehd on my laptop, and my desktop. it used to work on both, now nothing on both. they are usb....and yes, all other usb devices work properly. and i havent added new usb....thank you for all your info guys, and i appreciate every bit of it.

im not sure what a drive controller is, so where would i get one, and how would i go about replacing it? and why does it work temporarily at firt, then die? thanks so much again!!

[BipolarBill]

If it was new and sealed, it's probably just coincidence - a bad drive. It happens.

Even if you bought it on Ebay, it should still be under warranty. Go to Iomega's site and register it. After you do, contact them for a replacement.

As far as saving data goes, there are two parts to any external drive - the drive itself and the case. The case has circuitry that can indeed fail. See if you can disassemble the case and get the drive out. If you can do that, the drive may work in a different enclosure. Unfortunately, this process *will* void any warranty. That is a hard decision to make.

If you decide to disassemble, you will see whether this is a SATA or PATA drive when you remove it. It's probably a PATA drive, but we cannot recommend a replacement enclosure until you know what's inside.

[blugrassboy]

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-33748-D...3774710&sr=8-1


i found the same on on amazon. i don't know if this will tell you if it's a sata or pata drive. but thisis the one. i even paid more than what amazon wants for it! oh well. as far as the info, i have all my business data on that drive, so i HAVE to get it back. i have SOME backed up, but not alot so if i can at all salvage, i need to. what do you think? thanks again!

[BipolarBill]

Hmmm...I see the 1TB drive on Iomega's site and it looks like a double drive. If it is, a standard replacement case may not work. Although the double drive is specified as "JBOD", it requires a special controller to make two drives appear as one. I don't know if you can get data off the drives individually.

This is probably a double SATA drive.

You have a decision to make - disassemble or replace and lose your data.

As an aside, external storage should be used for *disposable* data and backups only. It's not good practice to put all your eggs in one basket, as you have discovered.

[blugrassboy]

pardon my lasnguage, but pis on the money! i need to save my data! is there a website that explains how to take this thing apart, and recover? i need my data by monday or some of my higher valued clients are gonna KILL ME! thanks for replying again!

[BipolarBill]

This is a new product. I really doubt that you are going to find step by step instructions for disassembly.

Furthermore, you really don't have a chance of getting this done by Monday. I would get hard to work on a story to tell your clients. You should take this unit to a PC repair shop *now* to see if they can help instead of chatting with us.

[Midknyte]

The iomega probably uses RAID0 to make 2 500s appear as 1TB. If that's the case, then it could be that the array broke, rather than true hardware failure. Even if it was just spanning, it's the same deal.

external drives should be a copy of data you have on your system. if it's important business data, you should have multiple backups including offsite storage. sorry you had to learn the hard way.