I have so many photos on this; worked fine and I was in the middle of searching thru photos and it stopped; starting making weird noise and now I can't detect it on my computer and it won't work :( Need to get it working and get all these photos off it; have photos since 2002. So bummed please help!!!!
If it started making noise it could be a bad hard drive. To test try to put your HDD to another pc and see if it sees your photos if it does back them up to google drive or One drive. if it does not most likely your hard drive had stopped working sorry please vote me 10 if I have answered your question
SOURCE: SimpleTech 320GB Hard Drive- unable to detect the device
I had a similar problem with a SimpleTech 250g Pininfarina USB drive.
I went through the drivers, the power supply, the USB cables, and the various
computers, USB cards and Operating systems.
Finally I opened the case and found the disk drive was mounted too far
forward, causing the IDE connector to barely touch. I loosened the mount screws,
slid the drive back towards the connector, tightened everything down and it works.
SOURCE: simple tech 500 gb external hard drive
It is not necessarily the hard drive itself that has failed. More likely it is the enclosure and the hardware within in that enables you to access the device. The only way to know for sure, is to connect the hard drive inside your PC and see if you can access it. If it accesses fine when inside your PC, you should be able to buy a new enclosure for your drive and be back up and running with very little effort. If the drive cannot be accessed when hooked up inside your PC, it is unfortunately dead.
Good luck
SOURCE: simpletech hard drive not working
I have that problem similiar to yours. My simple tech stopped working for like two years so i decided to open up my simple tech and removed my HD away from the old enclosure so I can try building my own external hard drive for the first time. I bought another new 3.5 enclosure, IDE/ATA for the old HD. I put it in the new enclosure and it worked!
It's the only solution you can have. No need to retrieve data or re-format your HD. You can leave it the way you like...if you wanna reformat it...up to you.
SOURCE: Simple Tech 250 GB external hard drive won't work
I devised these simple steps that tend to remedy quite a few issues with most USB portable / external hard drives and OTHER devices (though not always)
A few things to check but assumes USB and Windows for other interfaces / operating systems (mac/ Linux) similar steps may be adapted to suit.
1. Ensure it is connected directly to the computer to a USB 2.0 port not a USB 1.0 port as this can have effects on performance and reliability
2. Use only the cables that came with it NOT one that fits that may have been lying around or is longer. Not all USB cables are equal even though they should be)
3. Do not connect through an external USB HUB unless that hub is USB 2.0 AND has its own power supply.
4. Use ONLY the power supply that came with it if it has an external power supply Don’t use any other unless you know it has both the same voltage and current rating e.g. 12V 500mA anything rated below that would not work properly.
5. Always use the same port for connecting your devices. Some devices do not like being switched about. If switched they may want to install software / drivers again. This can be especially true if you move a HUB to another port
If you checked and fixed anything there and still have issues then check your hardware from CONTROL PANEL / SYSTEM / HARDWARE.
Any exclamation marks by hardware need fixing before you investigate any further
USB flash drives can fail for no apparent reason.
Sandisk Cruzers are especially bad for this.
USB hard drives should be treated with extreme care.
This is a real hard drive ! and knocks and bumps can quite literally kill them.
It is possible to remove drives from the enclosures in most cases and connect directly inside a PC to fully check it.
Note that if you hear a drive clicking or pinging this could be the worst thing you would hear.
Known as "The Click Of Death"
If none of the above steps help look at updating the drivers from the manufacturers web site in the support section.
SOURCE: I need driver software for my external hard drive
I checked for one on SimpleTech's (Hitachi) website. The only show a driver for Windows 98. This leads me to think you don't need any drivers. USB is hot pluggable. Just plug the drive in. Windows XP/Vista/NT will plug a driver in for you (a USB driver). Drive will be given an access letter. You can then access like any other drive from Windows Explorer. Sometimes, USB drives have additional software on them (known as firmware) that you can then run directly from the drive. The firmware is not require to use the drive, but may offer features like backup software.
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I brought it to a computer recovery place that is local to me and they said they had no luck so I'm going to pick it back up tomorrow and probably send away to another data recovery place and pray!!!! I have years & years of photos on this external hard drive and am sick about losing them all forever. I knew better and I never backed them up. It makes a ticking noise; if the hard drive is fried can a professional recovery place get the photos off it and recover them? They can get things off burned hard drives etc I would think there is a way to get the photos and save them.
Hello Karen I just went through exactly the samething. I buddy of mine who is very computer savy, and this is what we did...I bought a new hard drive he connected both the new one and the simple drive with out the encloser to his computer directely, note that the simple drive is a ATA drive and not SATA so the computer your connecting it too must have a ATA connector. there is a trinitiy rescue kit that is free that you can run, and it will detect your issues..your boot sector is problably corrputed but the info is there.then you can copy it to the new drive.
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