This is the SECOND IO Magic Corporation GigaBank 250 GB that I've owned, the replacement for the first one that I bought. The first one worked perfectly for a few months ... then I came back from vacation, the blue light was blinking, and my Dell Dimension 2400 no longer even recognized it as being plugged in. I/O Magic said that it must be a faulty power supply and suggested that I return it, which I did. The new one arrived yesterday AND DID THE EXACT SAME THING! Same blinking light, same lack of recognition from my PC. I spent 2 hours on online support chat with I/O Magic, and the best that they could come up with was 'Oh, well, the replacement must be broken, too ... Send it back and we'll send you a new one.' I don't think this is correct; check online and you'll see that a lot of other people are having this same problem. There is nothing wrong with my USB ports, and I downloaded a new driver from a link given to me by the I/O Magic tech support guy. Nothing works ... HELP!
Not sure if this will help, but was having the same problem. I separated the power cord to the AC adapter brick and reconnected it. My computer immediately recognized it!
Here are a few solutions.
1. If it was working and it doesn't seem to be any longer. Check to see if your PC supports SATA drives, if so you might be able to have the hard drive removed and install or temp install in the PC itself to get the data off.
2. If it has never been recognized then try this.
Remove the Hard Drive fom the case. Check the drive jumper settings. If they are on Cable Select change them to Drive 1 (slave) it should show proper jumper settings on the drive itself. Put it back together and give it a shot. It should work.
To take it apart. The silver on the back that tells you what each port and switch is is a sticker. Remove this. You will then find 2 screws. Remove the screws, but be careful. The front cover should slide out of the casing with the rest of the insides. The drive is then held in with 2 screws on each side. Remove these and disconnect the 2 cables attached to the drive.
When done reverse what you did to put it back together.
Go to run and type "diskmgmt.msc" choose your USB drive and create a partion and format as NTFS...Bingo you are done!
Ughhh. I am having the EXACT same problem. The other day I used my I/O external hard drive to transfer all my music files to my new laptop. It worked fine. Now, two weeks later, I go to transfer all my photos (literally, THOUSANDS of photos that are "backed up" on this device), and my laptop won't recognize the device at all. I've tried unplugging and re-plugging the device in multiple times. There isn't anything wrong with my USB ports (they work with my printer and webcam without any issues, and it's a brand new computer). I am so annoyed because I haven't had this thing very long at all, and I paid over $100 for it. Good thing I hadn't deleted all my files from my desktop YET. Jeez. Any suggestions?
I had similar problems with one of these IO Magic drives. As mine was out of warranty I took it to a computer Sales/ repair shop and they put the drive into another enclosure with a working Power supply. All is now OK and no data was lost!
This happened to me. I had connected the wrong power cable. 6v instead of correct 12v. Doh!
Great info guys...mine died tonight, so I thought. I took the drive out and put it in an old PC that I have HDD trays for quick access. It came right back up.
Thanks again...saved the pictures of my daughter since her birth.
I went and bought an Alura-tek exernal HD, and it works great. Gave the GigaBank away and it seems to work for their application.
Hi, I had same problems as others, the external hard drive does not get recognized. Eventually, I found not the problem is not the harddrive itself, it is the AC adaptor. Since I am still under warrenty, I called IO magic tech support, the gentleman answer the phone is very nice, he shipped me new AC adaptor in three days. After using the new AC adaptor, everything works fine, I did not lose any data.
I had this problem today, blue light flashing hard drive dead....i had bought and external drive enclosure , put the i/o magic hard drive apart and put it in the new enclosure and it worked perfect again, so i guess the power supply went bad....bought thwe enclosure for 50.00 us dollars at Best Buy.. hope this helps..
Drago
Y'know, it is downright PATHETIC, just how many other people are posting problems with their various external hard drives (with I/O Magic products standing out as one of the principle offenders). I can't help but think that these devices should simply be avoided like the freakin' plague until the industry standards finally catch up to what people expect out of a $100 + storage device. I mean, think about it ... I paid almost $90 for this worthless little lump of gunmetal-colored **** that sits next to my PC and threatens to die and devour all of my preious photos, movies and music at any moment without warning. How many CD-Rs could I have bought for the same money, especially with the kind of sales that the big box office supply stores offer in the sales inserts of every Sunday newspaper? Definitely enough to get the job done with confidence. Until I hear enough people rave about a dependable, reasonably priced product made by a company that actually stands by its workmanship, I am putting everything on CD-Rs and Internet-based storage sites. I/O Magic, SeaGate and the rest of them (they're all made by the same people in China, anyway) can all go to hell ...
I had the same problem with my IO Magic hard drive, worked fine and then stopped working sudenly. Turned it on, can see the green light on the power adaptor but would not turn on. No matter what I did just could not turn the power on.
With some trouble managed to open the unit. The screws are under the plastic elliptical shaped cover on the front and back of the hard drive.
Once the enclosure was opened I was able to borrow a power adaptor and use the hard drive without the case plugged to my PC and download all of my documents, pictures, music, etc.
Packaged the unit and returned the unit since it was still within the warranty period.
Good luck with your recovery.
I used ontrack Easy Recovery Pro. It found all my files on my i/o magic 1 tb external HD. I then saved them to another external HD. It worked perfectly using the Advanced Recovery mode. You need another HD to save the files to.
Replacement must be broken, too. Bad product...
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Mine also quit working after about a year and warranty had expired. I put in the freezer to see if heat was an issue but no success. Will next throw from moving car towards the dump to see if it gets jarred enough to work.
My I/O Magic Gigabank 250 GB doesn't work. I keep getting USB Device Not Recognized. Any suggestions on fixing the problem?
My Compaq desktop PC stopped recognizing My externl Maxtor ONE TOUCH 120 GB hard drive. I had used it approximately 4 months & it holds all of my pictures and videos. I made. I keep getting statement "cannot find software". In disk management Maxtor does not show up.
I have tried all the fixes I found on google,but nothing works. Seagate will replace it but I will lose all my data. Can anyone help me.
[email protected]
my PC stopped recognizing my Maxtor One Touch with all my pictures and videos. It is App. 4 mos. old I get msge "cannot locate software". Seagate will replace ,but I will lose all my data. I have tried all the fixes I found on google to nop avail. Can any one help me??
I have the same problem with my Gigabank 320. The simple answer is poor quality made in China. We have our laptops backed up onto the drive and it's useless after just one year. I have tried to use it with three computers and it just flashes but does not load with all three.
My IO Magic 250 did the same thing. It worked for a month then quit working. I tried contacting IO Magic, but they want the original sales slip which I can't find... gues I am screwed. Does anyone know how to open the case? I would like to at least salvage either the drive or the case... whichever still works. BTW... I will NEVER buy IO Magic again.
Our hard drive just all of a sudden stopped working. Now we just want to get out information off of the drive does anyone have a suggestion to at least get our information off the drive.
Tried all the standard things to get it to recognized the drive but with out any luck! Jim
Computer will not recognize the drive ... I have some very vital information backed up on this drive and Im a little scared right now that it is not working
Christian B.
Same thing for myself. One day it's fine...next day, a blinking light and the drive is no longer working or being read by my PC.
The same problem. my system does not recognize the hard drive. My usb ports are working fine and the drive is brand new. Are their and drivers available?
Exact same problem. Blinking light and not recognized by computer
I also am having the same problem. The i/o magic at one time showed up and then once turned off no longer showed up. Is it really worth the headache to find a solution. I am thinking of taking a hammer to it and sending it back to the company that makes the product. Pathetic is all i have to say and the support provided is a joke......personally i would say to everyone stay away from this brand....the product sucks and the support is even worse.....
Man, I know exactly how you feel. I'M SO F**KING P*SSED! Sorry about that, but my I/O Magic 300GB DataBank suddenly stopped working. The blue light worked perfectly when I flicked on the switch, and it's cables seem fine. One day I plug it into my Windows XP Home Edition PC and the computer doesn't recognize it. The best bet is to try a local computer store and ask if you can place the hard drive in another enclosure. The files on my Drive were so critical they are worth a lifetime. Anyways, I'm going to take this to a store. Tell me your results, and I will tell you mine.
Well i have the 320 Gig version, but yeah I have a similiar problem, but i doubt its a power source in my case, my "blue light" is not blinking, its just that my computer wont recognize the hard drive at all ,i have 3 mp3 players and 2 usb thumb drives that my computer recognizes in the same usb port no problem, but this drive is no where in "my computer". It shows up in device manager and says its working fine, but Ive tried it on 2 computers and ill be darned if i can find the drive to put a file on it! NOT happy!
I went as far as to open the I/O Magic drive. I found a Seagate ST3250824a. I found I/O Magic to not be very helpful. The drive shows up in my device manager under disk drives and the usb chain. My problem like everyone else is that it won't show up in "My Computer". The drive light stays on steady. My drive worked for several months too and now it is a paperweight.
Doggone
I've got the flashing Blue light of apparent death on my 1 year old Iomagic 250 GB external Hard drive.
I might take it out and put it "internally", in my computer and see if that helps . . . I hope.
I have the same problem and mines is the i o magic 320 gigs
I have the I/O 250 GB, Light started flashing a couple weeks ago and clicking, sometimes it clicks and blinks a specific number of times and sounds like it is "skipping" inside the case... Also I found I could not burn any data (I have 200+ gigs of music) to dvds to back it up...aarrrgh. It would copy to my desktop but VERY slowly, sometimes just freezing altogether. sound familiar? It got worse when my computer didn't recognize it as a drive or in device manager at all, nothing. Well, through screwing around with the thing, holding it on my lap, moving it to different positions etc I discovered that the power supply is the problem. It's pretty loose in the back of the drive, just crapola workmanship...
So instead of spending tons of money or time on data recovery services or software, try what I did...just wiggle the cord into different positions until the light stops blinking and it boots up. This can take awhile to find the exact right place, don't force it just slowly move it around to the right position. It's a short in there somewhere. that's my theory. I am now able to copy stuff over to my desktop at a reasonable speed so I can burn it from there. Haven't tried burning from the drive directly. Will be buying something new from a different manufacturer as soon as I can find a good one.
Hope this helps someone else, I know it can be stressful. My lesson here is to keep everything burned to dvds or some other secondary source, if it's important enough you'll keep it in more than one place.
MY COMPUTER DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE IO MAGIC. WHEN I PLUG IT GIVES A SOUND LIKE IT IS PLUGGED BUT IT IS NOT SHOWING IN MY COMPUTER AT ALL. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
My IOMagic 250 does more or less the same thing, except that it's usually under heavy load, like a big backup operation. It's like it overheats the power supply or something. Turn it off for awhile and turn it back on and it runs fine until the next big backup.
I had same problem. Tried the freezer. Then decided to follow advice here and got a Rocketfish enclosure today at Best Buy. Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to get the case apart and two minutes to remove the drive and install in the new enclosure. It works great and is even faster than before. Don't know how that's possible but it's a very clean connection with no delays like before. Their tech-support was most unhelpful.
I have 2 x 250GB and 2 x 320GB external HD from I/O Magic both 2.5y ago. They are ocasionally on, just when I do need them. One 320GB HD often turns on and you do not see it anywhere on system. Examining power supply it shows that 2A output at 12V is correct (HD operates on 12V). However, output at 5V is way bellow stated 2A (HD's 'brain' works on 5V).
I was having similar problems when I got the 320GB drive. Sometimes it would be there, sometimes it wasn't. It would show up in the device manager as a USB mass storage device but wouldn't be accessible. It looked to me like the drive wasn't getting enough power however I finally tracked it down to there being some sort of conflict that would occur between the card reader on my printer and the hard drive. For some reason the card reader would get precedence and knock the hard drive off. I solved it by plugging the hard drive into a USB PCI card since the printer was plugged into a case/motherboard USB port. It has worked flawlessly for 4 months or so now. Obviously this isn't a cheap/convenient fix, but I had a USB card sitting around.
exactly the same problem. just stopped working with no explanation.
My hardrive wont show up on my laptop.. when i used to turn it on it the blue light would flicker and it would work perfectly but now the light just turns on with no flicker and wont show up.. what should i do?
same problem how do we save our data? atleast mine worked for over a year but of course the warranty is expired.
go to your BIOS settings and check the options for hard drives add USB hard drive at boot. Save and exit. If that does not work then go to Dell support and download the lattest BIOS firmware of your Dell model and install. Then go to My computer right click and go to Device Manager and check under Hard drive if it shows the USB external drive. If you do not see the USB drive then it has been recognized or install. If it has a cross mark it means the driver of the USB drive is not correct and you can re-install driver. Good Luck
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