How to Fix a Portabe Hard Drive

Fix the problems you are having with your external hard drive.

Portable hard drives are designed to transport data from one computer to another. These drives vary in size from a few gigabytes to over one terabyte of storage space. Because there is no operating system or drivers required, the hard drive rarely runs into many problems. However, if you do encounter an issue with the hard drive there are a few different troubleshooting steps you may follow to correct the issue.

Things You'll Need

• External hard drive
• Power cable
• USB/Firewire cable
• Driver installation CD

Instructions

1. Connect the hard drive to the computer before powering the device up. If the hard drive is already on when connecting to the computer the system often has trouble detecting the drive.

2. Check the cable connection running from the hard drive to the computer. If the cable connection is not secure the computer is unable to send and receive data from the hard drive.

3. Power down the hard drive and leave it off for a few minutes. This performs a hard reset of the drive, possibly correcting any problem you are experiencing. Power on the hard drive and the computer should detect the hard drive.

4. If your hard drive and your computer have both USB and Firewire ports, switch to the Firewire connection if the data is transferring from the computer to the hard drive slowly. Firewire provides a faster transfer rate than USB and improves performance.

5. Install any drivers that came with the hard drive if the computer continues to not detect the drive. The drivers came on a CD provided with the external hard drive. Insert the disc into the disc drive of the computer and install the drivers.

References

• Device Drive Finder: External Hard Drive Troubleshooting