How can I get my Simpletech drive to mount in windows?
October 20, 2006 1:48 PM Subscribe
Windows XP Home Edition won't recognize my Simpletech external hard drive. The USB ports are fine, the computer recognizes -every- other USB device I own (15+ devices.) Help!
I already searched google on the matter. It turns out that Simpletech drives are remarkable crappy at plug and play'ing properly in XP home.
Before I bust the case open and put the drive in a new enclosure, can anyone help? Here are the stats:
USB 2.0 ports, verified working and "hot swappable" with a ton of other USB 2.0 devices.
Machine running XP Home, no previous problems with anything.
The drive -does- power up (as indicated by the power light and the whirring of the drive inside) The hard drive activity light becomes active after a moment and then flickers.
When plugged in Windows -does- "discover new hard ware" but then it just craps out and nothing happens. 30-60 seconds later windows makes the chime noise which indicates a device has been disconnected.
The part number of the drive is: SP-U25/40R
The website for the model is:
http://www.simpletech.com/parts/spu2540r.htm
I bought it off eBay new in box, and I -can- return it... but given that I can pick up a tiny enclosure for a laptop drive for under $10 on ebay... I'd just as easily swap it out as I would return it (since it was a really good deal.)
I -would- like to keep the cool red case though :) Help!
I already searched google on the matter. It turns out that Simpletech drives are remarkable crappy at plug and play'ing properly in XP home.
Before I bust the case open and put the drive in a new enclosure, can anyone help? Here are the stats:
USB 2.0 ports, verified working and "hot swappable" with a ton of other USB 2.0 devices.
Machine running XP Home, no previous problems with anything.
The drive -does- power up (as indicated by the power light and the whirring of the drive inside) The hard drive activity light becomes active after a moment and then flickers.
When plugged in Windows -does- "discover new hard ware" but then it just craps out and nothing happens. 30-60 seconds later windows makes the chime noise which indicates a device has been disconnected.
The part number of the drive is: SP-U25/40R
The website for the model is:
http://www.simpletech.com/parts/spu2540r.htm
I bought it off eBay new in box, and I -can- return it... but given that I can pick up a tiny enclosure for a laptop drive for under $10 on ebay... I'd just as easily swap it out as I would return it (since it was a really good deal.)
I -would- like to keep the cool red case though :) Help!
Response by poster: Interestingly enough the cord that comes with the drive has -two- USB jacks on it just for that reason. I tried it on a powered hub with both jacks plugged in and on the actual tower with both jacks plugged in.
The whole point was to -not- have to take a power adapter with me to work when I took the drive. I hope low power isn't the cause of the problem (it would certainly be a poor design on the part of Simpletech if that were the case.)
posted by JFitzpatrick at 2:11 PM on October 20, 2006
The whole point was to -not- have to take a power adapter with me to work when I took the drive. I hope low power isn't the cause of the problem (it would certainly be a poor design on the part of Simpletech if that were the case.)
posted by JFitzpatrick at 2:11 PM on October 20, 2006
My only other idea is for you try testing it on a Mac. That way you can figure out if it's a hardware problem or driver problem. If it mounts on a Mac, then there's some conflict going on with the XP drivers.
posted by Cog at 2:20 PM on October 20, 2006
posted by Cog at 2:20 PM on October 20, 2006
Response by poster: I'm headed to work in about 30 minutes. Once I get there I'm going to test it on a couple machines... I know we have a machine running Mac OSX, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, and I think we have one or two running XP Pro. I'll give it a shot on all of them and report the results back. =)
posted by JFitzpatrick at 2:22 PM on October 20, 2006
posted by JFitzpatrick at 2:22 PM on October 20, 2006
This is almost certainly that it is not getting enough power. If you want a drive that can always run off of bus power, buy a firewire one. USB simply isn't spec'ed with enough juice to spin up a hard drive from a single connection. It should work with the two-headed cable, but I have had mixed results.
posted by mzurer at 2:27 PM on October 20, 2006
posted by mzurer at 2:27 PM on October 20, 2006
The USB specification permits the computer/hub to limit the amount of current that a device can draw. When the device is plugged in, part of the handshake is to let it know how much power it can take, and if it's not enough the device won't work.
I ran into that using an external 16-bit sound module. It's a USB 1.1 device but it wouldn't work with any of the USB interfaces on my laptop; nothing happened with it was plugged in. I ended up buying a USB 2 card which I plugged into the laptop, and then plugged the sound module into it. And that worked, oddly enough. It was only after I researched it that I found out that laptops usually limit current draw on USB ports to 100 milliamps, and the sound module wanted 500 milliamps. Apparently the USB 2 card was willing to give it 500 milliamps, the max the specification allows per plug.
If your drive has two USB cables, almost certainly it's trying to draw 1 amp and they would both have to be plugged in for it to work. It should have worked with a powered hub, but it's not inconceivable that the computer refused to source that much current, especially if it was a notebook computer. (You didn't say what your computer is.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:58 PM on October 20, 2006
I ran into that using an external 16-bit sound module. It's a USB 1.1 device but it wouldn't work with any of the USB interfaces on my laptop; nothing happened with it was plugged in. I ended up buying a USB 2 card which I plugged into the laptop, and then plugged the sound module into it. And that worked, oddly enough. It was only after I researched it that I found out that laptops usually limit current draw on USB ports to 100 milliamps, and the sound module wanted 500 milliamps. Apparently the USB 2 card was willing to give it 500 milliamps, the max the specification allows per plug.
If your drive has two USB cables, almost certainly it's trying to draw 1 amp and they would both have to be plugged in for it to work. It should have worked with a powered hub, but it's not inconceivable that the computer refused to source that much current, especially if it was a notebook computer. (You didn't say what your computer is.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:58 PM on October 20, 2006
This is going to sound ridiculously simple, but is the hard drive partitioned? XP will not show an unpartitioned hard drive in the file explorer. Try opening the Disk Manager (or whatever it's called) that's in the Administrative Tools thingie and see if it shows up.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 5:25 PM on October 20, 2006
An unpartitioned drive won't cause a USB disconnect. Presumably that's not the OP's problem.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:36 PM on October 20, 2006
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:36 PM on October 20, 2006
Response by poster: Well I ended up shipping it back to the guy I bought it from. If I'm going to have to lug around an AC adapter I might as well just get a bigger cheaper desktop external drive instead of a laptop one.
Thanks for all the advice guys!
posted by JFitzpatrick at 9:15 AM on October 21, 2006
Thanks for all the advice guys!
posted by JFitzpatrick at 9:15 AM on October 21, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
I have a 7GB 2.5" drive from years ago that takes a bit too much power. The usb ports on the motherboard can't handle the power draw, but it works when I use the extra USB ports on my pci card. I don't know why this works. All usb ports are ultimately getting power from the same 12v molex connection.
posted by Cog at 2:09 PM on October 20, 2006