20 Most Recent Buffalo Technology DriveStation HD-HC500U2 500 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive Questions & Answers

electronics is not meant to be dropped The internals have been damaged

new hard drive needs formatting. go into the hard drive maintenance settings run this program diskmgmt.msc from run on start (home button) most windows (win 10 right click over home button) type in run box. you will see your drives, the one that says unformatted is you new one. in the box right click to format the drive or use the menu at the top to format and set drive after its done windows with be able to use the drive,

is the disk backup or in the pc internal hard-disk if external no need software download just get another pc or use recovery software to get your data from it and then format and re backup your data

Try a drive dock on the Removed Hard drive. The usual problem is the enclosure.

Follow these steps:1. right click on My Computer2.Click on manage3.Click Disc ManagementThere you can see External hd (you can chose to activate or change drive letters and that will do the job)

there is only one way put another harddisk on your system and install the os which you have in old one after installing it and remember do not open any disk untill you didnot put any antivirus and update. after that shut down your system and put that old hard disk with new one and before access that hard disk scan it properly .

Hello

Okay , so there are some steps to figure out what is wrong with your external.

Firstly , if your computer makes a sound when you plug in your external , go to Start-Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Computer Management-Disk Management , and see if your external drive is listed here with your local drives. If it is listed , right click on the drive and change the drive letter to make it appear in "my computer".

If your drive does not make a connection sound when connecting to your computer and also does not show up , please follow the next step.

Remove the hard drive from the casing if possible and install it in your computer case or another external case.If the drive works , the problem is with the casing and you can ignore the drive.

Now , if the problem is with the casing , there are still 3 possibilities.

1. The USB cable between the drive and the computer may be damaged.
2. The circuit board which connects your drive to the interface of the external may be blown.
3. The power supply (if applicable) may have a blown transformer.

The latter is the easiest to diagnose , does your external light up at all when you plug in the power? If not , then this is probably your problem. On the bottom of the adapter is a label which you will be able to use to have a new adapter made at your local electronics shop and this will cost about $30 max. They will also be able to test the adapter with a clamp meter to see if this is really the problem and this should be free.

The second component you want to test is the USB cable. If you have a printer , swop out the cables and see if your printer functions normally. Most externals use the same connector so you should be able to test it in this manner. If the cable works go on to the last step. If the cable is defective , replace it with a new one which you can find for about $10 at most electronics and chain stores.

The last component to test is the circuit board. This is a bit of a grey zone as you probably won't be able to spot the blown component unless it failed really badly. With the casing already opened , locate the external's circuit board and check to see if you have any blackened components or fluids leaking from some components. If all the other components of the external worked perfectly , then this is the faulty part. It is not really economical to replace the circuit as most of the time it is out of production by the time you need to replace it and it still costs a lot even if it is available so if your drive is working perfectly when connected via sata or IDE on your computer , the best is to buy a new casing and place your old drive in the new casing.

A casing costs about $50 and you could get it at most tech shops and big chain stores like Best Buy.

I hope this solves your problem and please reply if you need more help.

Kind Regards
Andrea

The power-supply seems OK, since you can hear it spinning, and the lamps are lit.

So, either the USB-to-disk-drive interface has failed, or the disk-drive itself has failed.

Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and connect it as a "slave" disk-drive in some desktop computer, to see if it works, when you bypass that 'USB' interface.

mali

A very common issue with USB hard disks. It is more than likely a failed drive, though you may want to check your cables, try a different cable, different USB port or different computer altogether to confirm that.
As for data recovery, the only option is to find out if the manufacturer provides a send-away service. If not, there are several companies online that will take in your broken drive, physically remove the discs and recover your data.
A sidenote - if you've got a thousand downloaded movies/music/porn on there, this may not be the best idea.

if your computer came with a motherboard disc the drivers could be on it click start control panel administrive tools ,computer management ,device manager look through all of your devices if you see a yellow question mark?or exclamation mark ! or red x right click to reinstall drivers or if you can see your usb but its not working ports(com&lpt)right click update driver make sure the lead/s that attach to this drive have a secure seating and are not bad/faulty the light on only tells that its getting power it might not be getting enough power you might test the lead/s or just replace the cable of the hard disk, when you plugged the external disk drive you got that windows could recognize the USB device change the cable everything should work fine again, sometimes the wires inside the cable will be damaged due to bending or stretching or placing heavy equipment upon the cable, check the USB leads that attach to the motherboard usually red-white-green-black make sure they are securely seated and have no dust build up on them dust will cause static and a lot of unforeseen problems hope this helps

There are generally 2 formats for Hard drives, the NTFS for windows and the FAT 32 for MAC. If you previously used windows then mac wont see it and vice versa. You can check this by right clicking and see the properties. If you want Mac to back up as well as using it on windows, you need to partition the Hard disk by going into the Mac Applications folder then select Utilities. If the Hard drive is connected you should see it and can select erase from the menu tab to format the disks according to your needs. This solved my problems and I hope this helps.

Right click on My Computer (or Computer is Vista/7) and select Management from the menu. Click to expand Storage and then click on Disk Management underneath it. It may take a couple of seconds for the area on the right to populate.Scroll down in the lower pane and see if you can locate your external hard drive in the list. When you locate it, right click in the left area that says Disk # and see if there is an option to Initalize the disk. Click on Initalize.

It'd help if you could say what kind of interruption you experienced. As long as its working now, I\d suggest you copy all your data onto another storage device and do another format. It'll take care of any bad or corrupted cluster that might've formed. Your data should be fine.

The noise that you're hearing is probably the hard disk needle moving back and forth trying to read data on the magnetic platter. I'm afraid that the noise you're hearing in the beginning is the drive trying to read data, but failing. This is usually the result of a faulty or dead drive.

Sorry to be the bringer of bad luck,

Regards,
Chris

1. If this is a usb connection it is possible the electronics have failed or the usb cord has become defective.
2. If you have a AC adapter then this also can be defective.
3. you may have to purchase another case and install the hard drive in the drive station to the new case
4. If the case is purchase with in the last 15 to 30 days you can take it back for a replacement at the store you purchased it from.