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General discussion

Problem accessing my external hard disk drive

Aug 16, 2006 6:55PM PDT

My external hard disk drive is a 200GB Seagate drive. I use USB 2.0 to connect it to my laptop and its being powered by an AC adpator.

I use it mainly to store my movie collections and now there's only about 16GB left in the drive, which means i have a lot of stuff in there.

So today while i was playing one of my movies on WMP, halfway through it suddenly stops and says that there's an error reading the file from my external drive. So i thought that my drive was stuck which it does from time to time. So i turned off the power and turned it back on again, only this time it doesnt work as it supposed to do.

First off, there's 2 LEDs on my external drive, a green one for power and a red one i assume is for data or something. Normally the green LED stays on but the red one only flashes when im reading or moving data into the drive. Now the green one stays on indicating power, but the red one keeps blinking NON STOP. At the same time there's a clicking sort of noise coming from my external drive which wasnt there before this incident.

My laptop wont recognize the external drive in "My Computer" anymore. I've tried it on my sister's PC and it wont read it there also.

So can anyone help me to at least recover the data on my external drive cause its very priceless to me.

Thanks

Discussion is locked

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an update
Aug 16, 2006 8:46PM PDT

Well it seems if i leave my external HDD connected to my laptop for about 20-30 minutes or so, the blinking red LED eventually stops blinking but remains on indefinitely, just like the green LED indicating power is on.

But if i turn off then turn it back on again, the red LED starts blinking all over again. What exactly could be wrong here, is the external casing or the HDD itself.

I also found out my HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 200GB.

Thanks again.

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Link, comment.
Aug 16, 2006 10:40PM PDT
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Solved the problem
Aug 17, 2006 5:10PM PDT

Well, i must thank you to you Rob for giving me the link, it proved really useful.

I took out my hard disk from the exernal casing and slot in my sister's computer as a slave drive. Turned on the comp, it auto detects the drive and instantly i could access the drive as normal again. The mst important thing was, ALL of my movies in there were intact and safe.

So my problem is definitely due to a faulty external casing, which i plan to get a new one tomorrow and hopefully i'll be up and running in no time.

But during all of this, i accidently misplaced the jumper for my hard disk and i feel that its lost now.
So i was just wondering whether is there any way i can get a replacement jumper. I dont think it will be expensive since its such a small component but might prove difficult to find.

If not, does my external hard disk drive need to be set as Master to run, or can i just leave as a Slave drive ?.

Thanks again Rob.

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Replacement jumper = YES.
Aug 17, 2006 10:02PM PDT

They are out there and at most will be 1 buck on the extreme high end. Just ask a repair counter person for one.

Bob