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Problem with Maxtor Basics External Hard Drive

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#1 ·
Hi,

Just in need of some help. I've had my Maxtor Basics 250GB external hard drive for around half a year now, been working fine without any problems. I recently gave it to a friend to borrow to copy a few things over onto their laptop.

I got a phone call two days ago saying that all of a sudden it stopped working, so I've got it back today and had a look and I've plugged it into my PC, my other laptop and even my TV and nothing has happened, the light at the front of the hard drive doesnt even come on anymore either (usually a green light). This hard drive is USB powered so it has no power cable.

Although I did check the device manager on my PC and it showed one unrecognized device, when i tried to hit "look for hardware changes" it brought up plug and play and tried installing drivers through windows update and looked at previous installed drivers, that failed though..

Good thing is that its being recognized (kind off?) by the device manager, is there any solutions?

I had alot of my music and movies backed up on this hard drive so it would be sad to lose all of that :(

Heres a screen cap from my device manager:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

My last resort would be to open it up as I'm not very handy with opening up computers and hardware :sigh:

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Adam
 
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#2 ·
If you're really really lucky, you've just got a bad cable -- have you tried connecting it with a different cable?

If you're pretty lucky, there's a problem with the USB connection in the enclosure -- maybe it got jostled and broke. If you're almost as lucky, the power supply in the enclosure is shot and didn't fry anything when it blew. Either of those two conditions, you'll need to pop the HDD out of the enclosure and hook it into another enclosure or straight into a PC. This is as easy as changing a headlamp or turn signal in a car -- just need to know where to pry/screw/unscrew, then just plug it in.

If you're kinda sorta lucky, search the forums for TVS diode. Fix for that will require a steady, technically skilled hand.

If you're unlucky, you're going to need professional data recovery and you'll have to evaluate the absolute and relative value of your data, 'cause that's real expensive.

jw
 
#3 ·
The first thing i noticed when I got the HDD back from my friend was the cable connecting to the hard drive end was really loose and wobbly once it was plugged in to the hard drive.. The cable I have with my hard drive is this sort of one:

http://i00.twenga.com/computers/usb...nal-hard-drive-usb-a-to-mini-b-p_583030vb.png

Would it be worth buying another and seeing if it works?

But I will try and open it up first and see if its the actual disk inside or not :) thanks for your help!
 
#4 ·
Maybe the usb jack came unsoldered in the enclosure then. if you carefully can take the enclosure apart (while UNPLUGGED) you should be able to get a look at what's up without rendering the enclosure unrepairable. And as long as you don't drop or heavily knock around anything, you won't do any damage to the drive by working on/taking apart the enclosure.

jw
 
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