I have got a F.A. Porsche LaCie harddrive, when i connect it it does not appear on my computer. The light up front flashes yellow and orange, however the disks inside the unit do not sound like they are spinning.

hi.
maybe problem is caused by your Power supply.
so i recommend you to do these:
1- remove the main hard drive and only connect "250GB lacie porsche hard drive".
and see is it recognized or not.
2- go to the bios (with pressing "delete key" at start of turning on) and navigate to power center.
then enable power saving mode.

The disk-drive has malfunctioned.

Search online for a professional "data recovery service".
For a significant fee, they can repair your disk-drive,
just long-enough to copy your files to a new disk-drive.

If it still has a valid WARRANTY, exercise the warranty to get it repaired/replaced.

If the warranty has expired, then open the case, remove the disk-drive, buy a new "compatible" disk-drive, connect it, and thus "revive" your external storage device.

I have the same **** problem. If anyone know how to solve this, or if its even can be solved, I'll be happy to know, thanks.

Make sure it is fully connected.

the interphase between the raw drive and the usb cable is faulty or blown up.
use the raw drive from the casing to power it directly to pc it would start working

Hi. Sometimes, there are compatibility issues on external drives. Most recent computers will read them while others may not. Either the external casing or the cable is causing this.

There have been problems plaguing the LaCie external harddrives, for quite some time now.

The issue directly relates to the interface, inside the external enclosure. I don't know if you are acquainted with harddrive designs, or the interface that they plug into. If you are, disregard the following.

This is an average example of an IDE harddrive, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive-en.svg
Looking at this illustration, note where it points to -> IDE Connector. The illustration isn't very good, but those dots are metal pins.
The connection inside your external harddrive,
that connects to the harddrive itself, is called an Interface. This is a plug that has socket holes, to match those metal pins.

Now we go a little deeper. There are two types of harddrives. One is an IDE harddrive, the other type is a SATA harddrive. Your LaCie
will have a SATA harddrive inside.
Instead of the 40 pins that an IDE harddrive has, the interface for a SATA harddrive has 7.
(It has 15 pins for the power connection)

Now my solution:
Should you wish to save data that is on your LaCie external harddrive right now, I suggest you buy an external enclosure, (SATA), take out the hardrdive thats in your LaCie, and install it in the enclosure.

Since, the dimensions of the, LaCie design by Porsche 160GB external harddrive are:
Height -> 1.4 inches, (About 1-1/2 inches)
Width -> 4.4 inches, (About 4-1/2 inches)
Length -> 7.4 inches, (About 7-1/2 inches),
I'm willing to bet the harddrive inside is a desktop harddrive size. (3.5 inches across in width)
http://www.lacie.com/download/datasheet/porsche_hd_en.pdf

These are examples of 3.5 inch SATA external enclosures,
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=2780&name=3.5-eSATA-enclosure&Nav=|c:2778|&Sort=0&Recs=10
(A $25 or $35 unit will work just fine)

Hallo,
my disk, when on, is not recognised by Windows while the light is flashing between yellow and orange fast (like a car's flash -faster-). please could anyone help me? - i need my data!

Thank you.

The problem is just external...Hdd is fine..Just buy new external couse there is no way to repair it

Lacie Porsche drives in my experience or infamous for not having the most durable bridge boards. The bridge board is a chip that has a chipset on it which take the SATA or PATA connection and send it to the USB and or Firewire ports on the enclosure. If the drive is powered up, you should get a small red or orange light on the front. When connected to either mac or pc ( porsches are MS_DOS formatted out the box ), if it does not mount or does not appear in DISK UTILTY, then it is a high probability that the enclosure/bridge board has failed and the drive ( if not making grinding, buzzing, clicking or beeping sounds) will have to be extracted and placed into a more stable enclosure. Hope this helps.