My MAXTOR Personal Storage 3200 says Read Only and does not allow me to write anything on it. It has never been used, only once to create two back-up files foe my wife and I, and they are empty but it will not allow me to write files to it! Any thoughts on why, if possible and how?

SOURCE: maxtor 3200 usb personal storage

OK all you genius's. Here's another and very probable solution. While having the same problem, I tried everything you've read here, and more. Nothing worked. But, I am smart enough to look outside the box. I have three more of these drives on another system in the office, so through the process of elimination, I found that the little "power supply" was the culprit of all my problems. Swiped one off of a known working drive, hooked it to drive in question, and Presto!!! Good reason to never get rid of all your cables and stuff when a device goes bad.

SOURCE: maxtor 3200 usb personal storage

Like many others, I had problems with the drive and tried some obvious solutions like swapping the old USB cable with a new one, trying different computers with XP, Vista, etc. and nothing worked. One solution I found was to open the HD case and swap the drive into a spare bay on your PC tower. I didn't want to go there since the case is very hard to open and I didn't want the hassle. So, the solution I tried was to replace the power supply. I saw this solution a few times in some forums so I figured to give it a try. I Googled the exact specs and found a comparable power supply at 12V Adapters (Aurora CO). It is not a Maxtor supply but I figured as long as the output was correct it may work. Just got the adapter today, plugged in the HD, and YES, IT POWERS UP and the XP at my work recognizes the drive! Now I have all my files available and accessible. Good luck to all, I hope this works for you. By the way, one lesson learned: BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP! Drives are so cheap now there is no reason not to (except for being lazy)!

SOURCE: manual

Seagate.com. Try these links out

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/documentation/manuals/ps3200_users_guide.pdf

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/maxtor/en_us/documentation/quick_start_cards/ps3200_quick_start_quide.pdf



http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&vgnextoid=45f3004f9f650110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=dbe13d317972b010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

SOURCE: Maxtor personal storage 3200 - flashing green light.

Solution:
First, disconnect the power cable from the back of the external hard drive:
If the power supply LED continues to blink:

1. Connect the power supply to a different outlet (or instead of connecting to a power strip, connect directly to an outlet in the wall).
   
   
2. If the power supply continues to blink after changing outlets, this indicates that the power supply is defective and needs to be replaced.
   
   
3. If the power supply stays solid, then reconnect to the external hard drive and see if the drive spins.

SOURCE: Maxtor 3200

There is a troubleshooter that describes steps for these symptoms on Seagates Knowledge Base website.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=188697