20 Most Recent Verbatim 160GB USB FireLite: The "drive for perfection" is built into our line of FireLite portable external ... 160 GB Hard Drive Questions & Answers

Look up Verbatim in the phone book. Find their phone number. Speak to customer service and they will repair/replace your unit free of charge, even if you don't have proof of purchase. I know, I just got my unit back, all fixed!

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

try other usb port, or other computer and see whether the hdd is detected. If still not, try to go to device manager ( http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000833.htm ), and then assign a drive letter to the hdd. After that, try to access it from Computer, if not able to access it, format it (use quick format) and then use this data recovery program to recover your files.http://www.asoftech.com/adr/

must be usb, usually if you have other devices using this resource and have not closed them it will not work. close all then add hardware, follow the rest it should work.

what happened when and after you spilled water on it was it connected and working at the time
did you? dry it out completely after you spilled water 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 sometimes the wires inside the cable will be damaged due to bending or stretching or placing heavy equipment upon the cable, 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, 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 also make sure the computers Ram and Cmos battery are securely seated if this fails to fix the problem you might have to install a usb 2 or 3 card they are cheap and easy to install you can buy these on Ebay very cheap if this solution does not work and you might need one hope this helps

Does the drive have external power (D.C.) adapter? If not try to use a 2 ended usb plug to make sure the drive is being powered up. Does the computer see the drive? go to my computer\manage\diskdrives

if it doesnt show you external drive try changing the cable which connects the drive to the pc

You can format it directly from Windows XP going in My computer then right click on your drive icon and hit format. Don't change anything in the fields but put a check in quick format.

For your backup needs, Acronis are making very good data management softwares.

Hi,

It's possible that you haven't enabled your hard disk in the BIOS set-up. Just go into your BIOS set-up and try to find your drives and check if your hard disk is enabled.

Get back here if you want clarifications.

Hope it helps.

Let me know.

Thanks!

Assuming you've already tried using it on another PC or Mac (as appropriate) with any needed software installed, and that didn't work, your next DIY step is to remove it from the container.

If you can remove it (most drive makers do not publish the instructions to disassemble their equipment), you can hook the drive up inside most PC (not laptop) cases directly (if they have the required IDE or SATA connection), or take it to your local PC store for a quick test.

As a last resort, you can sent it to a "disk or drive recovery" company to get some or all of your data back if it hasn't been lost to a surface defect on the disk. This is usually a fairly expensive option.

Cleaning a Flash Drive

Put the flash drive into your computer's USB port (assuming you have the proper driver loaded onto the computer). Go to "My Computer" and highlight the drive that shows up, right-click and select "Format." That'll wipe it completely clean.

Or, if you just want to remove the files, do the same thing but instead of formatting, just highlight the files and right-click to delete the file, pix, or whatever.

Your problem could be any one of these issues:

1. Faulty USB port on PC: Try a different computer or laptop

2. Faulty USB cable: Try a different Cable

3. Corrupt memory: Fix by an expert required such as www.SaveMyUSB.com

4. Faulty connections on main circuit inside the hard drive: Physical Fix by an expert required such as www.SaveMyUSB.com

5. Faulty controller chip (worst case scenario) : Direct flash memory read required by an expert required such as www.SaveMyUSB.com

Hope this helps and that it is 1 or 2 as 3, 4 and 5 will cost you money.

Good luck!

An external storage-device has four major components:

* the USB cable

* the power-adapter

* the disk-drive inside the enclosure

* the USB-to-disk-drive adapter inside the enclosure.

One of these components has failed.

Try a different USB cable.

Try connecting to a different USB port on your computer.

Try connecting to a USB port on a different computer.

Take a "multi-meter" and measure both the voltage and amperage output from the AC adapter, and compare with the specifications on the label on the adapter.

Open the enclosure, and remove the disk-drive, and then connect it as a "slave" disk-drive in a desktop computer, to see if it works at all.

Purchase a new, compatible, disk-drive, and install it in the enclosure, to "revive" your external storage device.

Get the part-number and serial-number from the label on your disk-drive, and access the manufacturer's web-site, and use "check warranty status", to see if they will replace the device, at minimal cost to you.

There exist commercial "data recovery" services that can try to repair your device, just long-enough to rescue and copy your files. For example, see: https://services.seagate.com/index.aspx?lng=en-US for a "no data - no charge" guarantee.

It seems that the disk-drive is "dying".
If it works, at least a bit, copy all the files from it onto your C: drive, or burn the files to DVD-writable disk(s).
Then, exercise the warranty to get it repaired/replaced.

Hi,

In most case's only one USB needs to be connected, but you need to load the driver for it from the disks which you would have received for it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Jason

Hi. This is a plug and play gadget. You dont need software/driver for theis device. Is there any error message on your screen everytime you plugged in the device?

That disk is necessary only if you want to use their specific backup program.
In reality the USB disk will work with every other backup program, even with the one that is already in Win7.