External disk drive

[johnbee]

I bought a Hitachi 2 TB 'Lifestudio' drive the other day, and my PC does not
see it. The USB ports work fine when tested with memory sticks. Of course
I have contacted Hitachi support to see if I can avoid having to take it
back to the shop, but I wonder if anyone here has had this trouble and found
a way round it. I have not had one before so do not even know whether I
need a driver - but there is no accompanying CD so I assume not.

 

[Paul]

I bought a Hitachi 2 TB 'Lifestudio' drive the other day, and my PC does
not see it. The USB ports work fine when tested with memory sticks. Of
course I have contacted Hitachi support to see if I can avoid having to
take it back to the shop, but I wonder if anyone here has had this
trouble and found a way round it. I have not had one before so do not
even know whether I need a driver - but there is no accompanying CD so I
assume not.

I looked at a few of the Lifestudio product on Newegg, and they
mention the thing comes with a couple partitions defined. One
is set up as a "read only CDROM", and holds the preloaded software.
The read only partition doesn't appear to be removable (or at
least the reviewer of the product, didn't find a way).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145348

3.5" external hard drive
USB 2.0 cable
AC power adapter
Preloaded Hitachi Backup software
Preloaded LifeStudio software
QuickStart guide

I trust the AC adapter is properly connected, to give it power ?
At 2TB capacity, it probably has a 3.5" drive inside, and that
requires enough power to work. The AC adapter provides that power.

The hgst.com web site is useless, and I could not find anything of
value there.

You can use this utility, to watch the USB ports, while you plug
in the product. It could be, that if there is an "autorun" file
on the hard drive, that some security feature of your OS is preventing
further activities.

UVCView was written by Microsoft, but they've removed it from their
site for download. They also had the copies stored on web.archive.org
removed. So we're left with these sources, when you need a copy.
There were actually three different executables on the Microsoft
site, likely one for 32 bit and one for 64 bit cases. Since I'm
32 bit, I tend to only download the 32 bit stuff, and that is what
the following refers to (the 32 bit version).

*******
ftp://ftp.efo.ru/pub/ftdichip/Utilities/UVCView.x86.exe
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_IDs/UVCView.x86.exe

File size is 167,232 bytes.
MD5sum is 93244d84d79314898e62d21cecc4ca5e

This is a picture of what the UVCView info looks like.

http://www.die.de/blog/content/binary/usbview.png

Some information on the parameters seen in UVCView.

http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb5.htm

You should be able to get VID/PID info from a plugged
in device. That program will also help you determine whether
the device is alive at all or not.
*******

If there is no change in the UVCVIew window at all, when
the powered LifeStudio is plugged in via a USB port, then
it is likely dead. You could also listen to the case of the
LifeStudio, to see if you can hear the "hum" of the hard
drive motor.

Paul

 

[Stewart]

That is interesting. I have a Seagate external hard drive and like you it
is not recognized by my "Windows 7" hard drive; the computer knows it is
there and shows it when I click on "my computer as drive G but it will not
open anything on the Seagate and even says it is empty.
I have a laptop with "Windows 7" and it can operate with the seagate hard
drive; likewise I have a second hard drive in my desktop running "Windows
XP) and it works fine.
There are no problems with the connections so it has to be software
somewhere in the "Windows 7" operating system.
Hope you get yours sorted out.

 

[Joe Morris]

That is interesting. I have a Seagate external hard drive and like you it
is not recognized by my "Windows 7" hard drive; the computer knows it is
there and shows it when I click on "my computer as drive G but it will
not open anything on the Seagate and even says it is empty.

Question: are the external drives cited in these two posts powered from the
USB connection, or from a separate wall wart? And are they being connected
to powered system board USB connections, or to an external hub?

I'm asking since I've had situations on various systems in which a
USB-powered disk drive was getting marginal power through a USB hub. The
drive would spin up and Windows (XP or 7; both exhibited the behavior) would
recognize the USB interface, but the added load of activity as Windows
examined the device would take the power level down to the point that
Windows could not complete the mounting process. The solution was to plug
the device directly into a powered hub cabled directly from the system
board.

I've also had a Seagate external drive (powered from a wall wart) with
*something* broken in the power supply. The device failed after ~ one year
of use; I tore down the unit and found that the internal disk (a standard
3-1/2" Seagate) was fine, but when powered from the DC power supply in the
exernal case it would not spin up. I still don't know why this was
happening; I put a scope on the +5 and +12 DC lines and see nothing unusual.
Given the price of external disks these days it wasn't worth pursuing,
especially since I used the internal drive as a replacement for one that had
failed elsewhere.

I had a similar problem back when I was using an original IBM PC (the
initial model, with 16 KB soldered on the system board): a hard disk I had
installed would not spin up until I rewired the power supply to delay
turning on +12 by a few milliseconds. No, that workaround didn't work this
time.

Joe Morris

 

[LSMFT]

I bought a Hitachi 2 TB 'Lifestudio' drive the other day, and my PC does
not see it. The USB ports work fine when tested with memory sticks. Of
course I have contacted Hitachi support to see if I can avoid having to
take it back to the shop, but I wonder if anyone here has had this
trouble and found a way round it. I have not had one before so do not
even know whether I need a driver - but there is no accompanying CD so I
assume not.

Create a partition and format it.

 

[johnbee]

Question: are the external drives cited in these two posts powered from
the USB connection, or from a separate wall wart? And are they being
connected to powered system board USB connections, or to an external hub?

I'm asking since I've had situations on various systems in which a
USB-powered disk drive was getting marginal power through a USB hub. The
drive would spin up and Windows (XP or 7; both exhibited the behavior)
would recognize the USB interface, but the added load of activity as
Windows examined the device would take the power level down to the point
that Windows could not complete the mounting process. The solution was to
plug the device directly into a powered hub cabled directly from the
system board.

I've also had a Seagate external drive (powered from a wall wart) with
*something* broken in the power supply. The device failed after ~ one
year of use; I tore down the unit and found that the internal disk (a
standard 3-1/2" Seagate) was fine, but when powered from the DC power
supply in the exernal case it would not spin up. I still don't know why
this was happening; I put a scope on the +5 and +12 DC lines and see
nothing unusual. Given the price of external disks these days it wasn't
worth pursuing, especially since I used the internal drive as a
replacement for one that had failed elsewhere.

I had a similar problem back when I was using an original IBM PC (the
initial model, with 16 KB soldered on the system board): a hard disk I had
installed would not spin up until I rewired the power supply to delay
turning on +12 by a few milliseconds. No, that workaround didn't work
this time.

Joe Morris

Thanks very much for the helpful replies. I reckon I might have a dud. I
gave it a shake and it rattles a bit, and I am fairly sure that is a bad
sign. I am not really a hardware man to say the least.

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

Thanks very much for the helpful replies. I reckon I might have a dud. I
gave it a shake and it rattles a bit, and I am fairly sure that is a bad
sign. I am not really a hardware man to say the least.

Most likely the drive inside the box is a SATA drive. The rattle you
heard when you shake the drive box (hopefully with it powered off) could
be a cable unplugged.

I've had any number of SATA cables become unplugged on after physically
relocating Raid 5 systems until I started purchasing the cable type that
would physically "Latch" onto the drive connector.

If the problem is a loose SATA cable you might be able open the case and
plug it back in. This might void your warranty so I'd make sure you
have tech support on the phone or even better in an online chat where
you can capture the text for proof of permission should you still have
to return the unit.