External Hard Drive?

I had this happen a while back to a Western Digital drive in an external enclosure. (just one partition)

Just had it happen to a mini external drive.
(multiple partitions)


Under My Computer you can not see the drive.
If you go to..... run....... diskmgmt.msc
they show up as.... Healthy (Unknown Partition)

So there is no lettering.
If you right click on the partition, the only option is "Delete Partition" or "Help"

If you go to the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the tray at the bottom right, you can find it.

In both cases, they were working fine then they didn't plug and play.

I have been looking around on line, and this looks like a problem that lots of people are having.
Doesn't seem to be much education about this either.
Education so that it doesn't happen would be nice.
What is the cause?
USB? Plug and Play?
OS? ? ?
?
?
?

Outa my league.
Most of the minions are out today.
I can ask tomorrow if no one else can help.

Yep any advice will be good at anytime.

Hoping that I won't have to spend $$ to have someone recover all the info, if it is there??

Junk it.

I just bought a new enclosure from newegg.com and it works great.
It was on $22 or so w/ free shipping.

These things do not last long and there are a lot of cheap ones out there.

Good one Ultra!

The problem is, I use these things for back up storage.
I can't have them get jacked up on me.


I figured that it is probably crapped out, but there has to be more knowledge about these issues than the hard drive companies are letting on or Microsoft/OS for that matter.

I spend 60.00 for 120GBs in an enclosure and it craps out.
Haven't had it more than 45 days.

LOL!

The first drive that I had this happen to was a WDC 160 GB 3.5"

"snowinapril" wrote:

Quote:

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Good one Ultra!

The problem is, I use these things for back up storage.
I can't have them get jacked up on me.


I figured that it is probably crapped out, but there has to be more knowledge about these issues than the hard drive companies are letting on or Microsoft/OS for that matter.

I spend 60.00 for 120GBs in an enclosure and it craps out.
Haven't had it more than 45 days.

LOL!

The first drive that I had this happen to was a WDC 160 GB 3.5"

---

go for a buffalo technologies or something else with 750 GB of storage and raided drives.
:)

if you're a mac guy, Macworld just had a big spread on these drives and the best to get.
Applies similarly to PC world I would suppose too since they support both.

"snowinapril" wrote:

Quote:

---

Good one Ultra!

The problem is, I use these things for back up storage.
I can't have them get jacked up on me.


I figured that it is probably crapped out, but there has to be more knowledge about these issues than the hard drive companies are letting on or Microsoft/OS for that matter.

I spend 60.00 for 120GBs in an enclosure and it craps out.
Haven't had it more than 45 days.

LOL!

The first drive that I had this happen to was a WDC 160 GB 3.5"

---

I have heard that flash drives are better than traditional hard drives because they don't have any moving parts.(actually I heard it based on Ipods) I have used flash drives for years and never had a problem.

"Webby" wrote:

Quote:

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"snowinapril" wrote:

Quote:

---

Good one Ultra!

The problem is, I use these things for back up storage.
I can't have them get jacked up on me.


I figured that it is probably crapped out, but there has to be more knowledge about these issues than the hard drive companies are letting on or Microsoft/OS for that matter.

I spend 60.00 for 120GBs in an enclosure and it craps out.
Haven't had it more than 45 days.

LOL!

The first drive that I had this happen to was a WDC 160 GB 3.5"

---

go for a buffalo technologies or something else with 750 GB of storage and raided drives.
:)

if you're a mac guy, Macworld just had a big spread on these drives and the best to get.
Applies similarly to PC world I would suppose too since they support both.

---

Good to know about Buffalo!
I have seen their rigs in Frys, but didn't know much about them.

Buffalo is an excellent product.
We had three of their "Terastation" units on our LAN and was able to transfer and recover data easily.
Set up is simple and after it is on the network just map a drive and you are in business. :D

"jmcdon00" wrote:

Quote:

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"snowinapril" wrote:

Quote:

---

Good one Ultra!

The problem is, I use these things for back up storage.
I can't have them get jacked up on me.


I figured that it is probably crapped out, but there has to be more knowledge about these issues than the hard drive companies are letting on or Microsoft/OS for that matter.

I spend 60.00 for 120GBs in an enclosure and it craps out.
Haven't had it more than 45 days.

LOL!

The first drive that I had this happen to was a WDC 160 GB 3.5"

---

I have heard that flash drives are better than traditional hard drives because they don't have any moving parts.(actually I heard it based on Ipods) I have used flash drives for years and never had a problem.

---

I like flash drives but the photo technology is huge.
I use 4-8 GB compact flash cards for one event.
So it adds up fast.
Yes flash is more reliable and what I have heard is that things are gearing towards going flash, but it is difficult to see it catching up with the size that I need to store my work.