External HD - Original Trilogy

Author: Trooperman
Time: 6-Oct-2006 12:19 PM
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Sorry if this isn't the right place for this, but I was wondering if any of you could help me out.

I have an external Maxtor HD (160GB) that I have hooked up in an external HD case and connected to my PC via firewire. It had always worked fine before, and it was great for the first few months, but yesterday, for no reason at all, I switched on the drive and it didn't do its usual blinking sequence. The lights switched on, but I knew already that something wasn't right. I went to My Computer and lo and behold, the three drives (I had partioned the Maxtor into different drives) were all missing.

So I restart, plug it into different ports, download a windows update that's supposed to correct that problem ( microsoft.com, try to revert the firewire drivers back to SP1, everything. I've tried everything, and nothing works. When I go into control panel, system, hardware, and then look at the device manager, I actually see the external HD on the list. But it has a yellow exclamation point next to it. I go to properties, and it says:

Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43).

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If my files were to be somehow wiped out, or corrupted, or if the drive has to be reformatted, then it would be a disaster. All the audio files (and some video) from my project "Shroud of the Dark Side" were on that disk, and I only backed up some of it, thinking that the external HD was reliable.

Do you think it's just the external case gone bad? Is there any chance that my files are somehow irretrievable? Later today, I'm going to try putting the HD in a different case, and if that doesn't work, actually installing the Maxtor into the body of the computer.

Any help would be really appreciated. I'm scared to death about this...

-TM

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

Author: Zion
Time: 6-Oct-2006 12:49 PM
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My guess is that unless the HD makes weird noises when you turn it on, it's just the case/firewire interface that's the problem. I'm almost positive that if you installed it directly into the motherboard it would work just fine. You might also try just going to "add new hardware" and see if it can locate the drive. I have this weird glitch on my system (WinXP Pro) where it will not recognize my 4th HD when it first boots up. When I initiate the "add new hardware" wizard, somehow it magically pops up on My Computer before the wizard actually starts searching for hardware. Anyway, let us know what happens.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

Author: Trooperman
Time: 6-Oct-2006 1:27 PM
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Thanks for the reply, Zion. The "add new hardware" doesn't work, because what keeps happening is that it recognizes the case, but not the Maxtor drive inside the case. It also tries to install software for the case, which is impossible because it's a plug-and-play device.

So I really hope that the hard drive itself wasn't affected by any of this. I'll let you know what happens after I try those other options (including plugging direct into the motherboard)...

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

Author: Laserman
Time: 21-Oct-2006 5:19 AM
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Pop the drive into the PC and see if it recognises it.
You may have to go into the diskmanager and mount the drive.

If it works then you are OK, if it doesn't, listen to the drive when you power up the PC (stick your ear on the drive) you should hear it spin up and the heads move.

If you do, then download HDDRegenerator http://www.dposoft.net/ it has saved my bacon (and my drives on multiple occasions)
You can try before you buy.

Author: mcfly89
Time: 26-Oct-2006 6:47 PM
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I've had this happen before by putting the master/slave peg in the wrong place on the HD. Most of my external enclosures want the peg to be absent, but others need it there. Sometimes master, sometimes slave. I end up trying them all until it recognizes the drive.

Author: Laserman
Time: 30-Oct-2006 6:17 PM
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Good point, some drives need to be set to 'master only' rather than master with slave present.

Author: Trooperman
Time: 25-Nov-2006 5:01 PM
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Thanks a lot for your advice, everybody. My actual hard drive wound up being corrupted (the case wasn't at fault), but I was able to find a way to recover all of the data. So this story has a happy ending

Thanks!

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition