Not carma related but..

[Triad2Much]

I just blew a wad of cash on a Western Digital MyBook Essential Edition 160 gb external hard drive.

I was going to use it to transfer all of my information on my main drive onto it and then reformat my main drive. Well.. I plugged it in and it installed all its drivers and shit, and I (stupidly) proceeded to put and remove some files onto it. Granted, they aren't totally hard to find again. But enough of a pain in the ass to warrant me posting.

At any rate, everything worked fine last night, and I got about 9 gb of stuff onto it, before I decided to go to bed. For some reason, I decided not to leave the pc on, so I shut down.

This morning, I turned it on, and first thing I noticed was that the drive doesnt turn back on with the pc. I even hit the power button and nothing happens. BUT if I unplug the power cord and plug it back in THEN hit the button, it turns on. But then it goes through all the installation shit and then bam. nothing happens. It says it finds the USB mass storage device, and installs new hardware, and drives and such. and then it never shows up in my harddrive list. It did yesterday though.

So it says to check under the device manager under USB connections, and theres Mass Storage device, but the error that pops up saying the device isnt working properly is under Unknown Device, even though it recognizes it. so under device manager, there is ALSO and unknown device with no drivers.

I uninstalled both, and then pulled the power cord out of the external drive, then turned off my pc, and plugged everything back in and restarted. Does the same damn thing now. anyone have any friggin ideas?? I'd return it, but.. you know.. I'd like to get that 9 gigs of shit I put on there back before I do so, if need be. If all else fails, is it possible to yank it out of its box and connect it internally just to get that info back?

[Triad2Much]

aye, I'm stupid.

I tried the safely remove hardware thing on the systray (i thought it was the same thing as the one in the control panel). its not. it removed it, I unplugged it, restarted it, and plugged it back in and it works again.

so if anyone else has this problem, try that.

[Tony]

I've had tons of fun with my extern HD too during the time I've had it now. I save pretty much everything on it these days. I never thought it, but.. 300gb can vanish pretty quick.. Beware!

[Triad2Much]

oh, i'm aware.. this is my 3rd harddrive.. lol

[Deamon]

Don't know if you already know this but if you right click your external drive, then go to the hardware tab, double click your drive and then select the policies tab, you can optimize your drive for quick removal so you don't need the safely remove hardware thingy. Now when you have a power failure or something like that you won't lose any data too.

[Triad2Much]

good to know, but it seems it already did that on its own.

but thats a handy thing to know, thanks