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My external USB hard disk drive is not recognised (US: recognized) by several PCs/computers

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Problem

I have an elderly Dell Dimension XPS desktop PC upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 with 1GB of RAM memory and a 500GB SATA hard disk drive. I use a 500GB Seagate Expansion external hard disk drive for storage. I have antivirus and antispyware/malware scanners and a firewall, all of which are fully updated. The computer became very sluggish, so I decided to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows 7, which had to be a clean installation to upgrade from Windows XP. I was advised to disconnect the USB 2.0 cable of the external hard drive from the computer before reformatting the boot drive, which I did. The computer runs fine now, but, for some reason it doesn't recognise the Seagate external hard drive, even though its LED light indicating power is on and disk activity lights up and I can feel the drive spinning. I tried installing the external hard drive on different desktop and laptop computers, but it was not recognised. I am out of ideas. Is there any way I can get the drive working so I can recover the data stored on it?

Answer

It's not advisable to use an external hard drive for general data storage, which should really only be used only for temporary backups, because external hard drives are generally slower than internal hard drives. Some of them come preformatted to use the FAT32 file system, which has a 4GB file-size limit instead of the NTFS file system that is native to Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7. (With the NTFS file system , there is no maximum file size - a single file can be made to take up all of a drive or partition's free space.) Moreover, they are more likely to fail because of a greater likelihood of accidental bumping or dropping, and many external hard drive enclosures that house such drives are not properly cooled for continuous usage, which can lead to premature failure.

The possible causes of your problem are as follows:

1. - A bad cable, so try using another USB 2.0 cable just to make sure the cable is not damaged. (A USB 3.0 cable if you have a PC that provides USB 3.0 ports and you have a USB 3.0 external hard disk drive.) The internal connections and wires of cheap USB cables are prone to breakage - a complete or intermittent break, so you should try using a cable of high quality.

2. If you are using the same USB 2.0 port to connect the drive to the PC, it might have developed a fault, so try using a different port.

3. - The controller inside the Seagate drive or the drive itself has failed, which would necessitate replacing the drive. You could send it to a data recovery company that would charge an arm and a leg to recover the data if it is that valuable to you. You can find such companies by using a web search engine. To locate such companies in the UK, you could use a search query such as data + recovery + uk (as is). They also advertise in computer magazines such as Computer Shopper (Expert Reviews on the web). It is a good idea to search for reviews of such a service. Kroll Ontrack is a reputable company in the UK.

4. - The built-in USB hub provided by your PC's motherboard may have failed, so try using other working USB devices on the PC, such as a USB flash drive. If none functions correctly, then the problem is caused by a faulty motherboard implementation of USB. USB connectivity provided by a PC's motherboard is not replaceable unless the motherboard itself is replaced, but you can add USB ports by installing a plug-in PCI or PCI Express USB adapter card. You can make use of a search engine to search for usb card to find sellers of these cards. To fix the same problem in a laptop PC would require buying a USB CardBus or ExpressCard adapter, depending on which of those card standards the laptop supports. USB hubs that are self-powered or powered via the computer and which provide additional USB ports are available, but have to be connected to a USB port on the computer, so buying a USB hub is not an option if the PC's USB implementation has failed.

The hard disk drives used in home PCs typically have an average lifespan of five-years, but many last much longer and some can fail much sooner. In fact, because they can easily be damaged by being dropped, etc., some drives are fatally damaged during transportation to the vendor or the purchaser. Unfortunately, you rarely receive a warning of an impending failure, thus the need to make regular, restorable backups.

As you can see on Seagate's website the external hard drive that you have only has a 1 year warranty, which is due to the fact that they are easily damaged. This statement comes from Seagate's website: "How Long Does The Coverage Last? Our warranty periods are 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or 5 years from the documented date of purchase, depending on the type of product and where it was purchased."

However, in the UK statutory warranties are now a minimum of 2 years due to an EU directive and under the Sale of Goods Act technical goods must last as long as their expected useful life or they have to be repaired or replaced, which in case of an internal hard disk drive could be 5 years. If the user has not damaged the drive, I don't see why it should be any less for an external drive.

Seagate Expansion External Hard Drives -

http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/