[Fusik]

Alright guys! I need a code cracked, because I miss my files :P

I have a Lacie 500GB (Design by F.A.Porsche) external HD that use to work great. I put movies, music, important files, and the works on it. I lost the USB cord for about 3 months, found it and plugged her back in.

First off the computer doesn't even show the external HD in my "Computer" file. Though when I plug it in windows does that little beep and says it's been recognized. Now it's always been a plug and play HD. As in when I bought it I plugged it in, and va'law it worked great. Now it doesn't register.

Second problem is the one that concerns me the most. I went and restarted my computer with it plugged in, to see if it would work. That is how my old school computers last year identifed HD's. You had to restart them. Well what happened was it got stuck at the Window's Vista loading screen. So I did a hard shutdown, and re-booted. Yet again nothing. So I unplugged the HD and boom the computer worked but with problems. Before it made it to the user selection screen it said Windows had encountered a serious error and that it needed to try and repair things. I went with the repair and it did an automatic system restore to the day before when everything ran smoothly. I have not yet plugged it back in, with the fear's that it's gonna trash my computer. Now I don't believe it's a heat/power issue as I use to run it seamlessly. None the less I cleaned all the case vents, and fans, and I am going to attempt to run the HD off a seperate plugin in the wall, instead of off my computer power bar.

Suggestions and/or fixes? It use to run fine. If I must and have very detailed instructions I will try and wipe all the files on the HD and see if that works, but I use to scan it every day for viruses and never found one of those either.

Thanks in advance,

Fusik

Computer specs:

Manufacturer: HP-Pavilion
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 3070MB RAM
Hard Drive: 389 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT

[IceCold]

Part of the issue could be if it's an SATA or IDE. If it's an IDE, it could be a simple Jumper issue. Which I've ran into a few times not paying attention to things, just check it and make sure it's set for Cable Select. If that still doesn't work, uninstall the HD completely, all Drivers, everything, then plug it back in as Cable Select and let it install the Drivers once again.

Don't automatically resort to formatting the HD, there's alot of things that can be done before resorting to it. Let me know when you've done what I suggested.

[Fusik]

How can I find that out? The instruction book doesn't have any info on wheter it's SATA or IDE. Neither does the website.

The HD doesn't even show on my on my computer.

Edit:

Also there is only one button on the whole HD. It's the on and off button

[Fusik]

Alright I found a way to uninstall it and then plugged it back in.

Get error CODE 10 (The Device Cannot Start)

So I went followed some steps and Windows FIXIT cannot do anything.

[IceCold]

Error Code 10? Hmm...Well what I was suggesting involves taking the HD out of the Enclosure, and putting it into the PC. Then you'd know what your Jumper Settings were, and if it was IDE or SATA. I had to do that with an old Maxtor 300Gig External, that was giving me very similar problems to what you are describing.

I suggest, if it's no longer under warrenty, taking it out of the External Enclosure and connecting it directly to the Motherboard. If you cannot do this, or don't know how, just say so.

[Fusik]

Defiantly don't know how to.

I may just wait and buy a new one and redownload what I had on it.

[IceCold]

If you've got the money and don't care then go ahead. I'm just saying if you'd prefer not to there's many options you can take before resorting that it's shot.