Portable hard drive question, kinda weird.

journeyfanatic · Post by **journeyfanatic** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:04 pm

So I use a Western Digital 120gb Passport usb hard drive for backup purposed. It has worked fine since I bought it almost a year ago but, last week it stopped working. When I plug it into my laptop I get a message that says "searching for drivers" and then "your device is ready for use" but the auto play never comes up and it doesn't show up on my computer. the funny this is that I've tried it on about six different computers with the same effect but there is one computer at my job where it works just fine everytime I try it. Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone know what causes it or how to fix it? Thanks.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:27 am

I dont know, but you can get an empty USB hard drive enclosure for like $15, why not just get a new one and see if that fixes it? You can always return it.

nitro2k01 · Post by **nitro2k01** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:37 am

timmeh87 wrote:I dont know, but you can get an empty USB hard drive enclosure for like $15, why not just get a new one and see if that fixes it? You can always return it.

No! Opening the drive would immediately void the warranty.
I think a better idea is to go to that computer at work, backup your files and reformat it.
On the computers where it doesn't work, have you tried looking in the disk manager what it says about the drive? Does it appear to be any partitions on there?

Post by **bicostp** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:25 am

Those drives only come with a 1-year warranty anyway. [link]

I bought one of these a while back for $40 (it was an 80 gig in a damaged package), hoping to find an IDE drive I could swap into the beater laptop. Turns out they just use laptop SATA drives in those things. (I snapped it back together and returned it.)

They're stupid-easy to take apart with a putty knife; there's nothing but plastic snap tabs holding the halves of the case together. As a bonus, if you do it right (and are careful with the tools), there should be no evidence of taking it apart on the outside. Take it apart and try hooking the drive to your desktop. (I think there's a way to use regular SATA cables on laptop drives.)

journeyfanatic · Post by **journeyfanatic** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:20 am

Thanks for the help guys, I think I'm just gonna back it up and get a new larger hard drive. BTW- If I do reformat this drive can I take it apart and use it to upgrade the hard drive on my PS3?