Monday, July 14, 2008

Simpletech 250 GB USB external hard drive not recognized in Win XP

"USB drive not recognized". the moment I plug in my Simpletech Pinnifarnia 250 GB portable external USB hard drive to a computer running XP and some cases vista, I get the error.
Have been facing this problem for quite a long time.

Finally got the fix. Serendipity - should I say.
It happens that most computers particularly the old models(any system that existed before 2007) have the older USB port which limits the available power for the USB drive. As a result, the drive is unable to draw sufficient power to function properly. The OS responds to this as unrecognized drive.
Solution -
If the USB cable has a second USB interface for additional power(the simpletech hard drive most likely would have one, not sure about other manufacturers), connect it to the USB port of a second desktop or a laptop, to get the required power.
Note that connecting the secondary power cable to another USB port of the same computer may or may not solve the problem.

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