Simple tech 500 gb external hard drive

could be some solutions for this.

• hardrive is damaged and is not working. (no cheap solution)
• hardrive lost format, and it need to be formatted again.
• windows plug and play can't assign a drive letter.

this last option you can make it entering:
start > right click on my computer > Storage

then identify your hard drive (plug it and unplug it, Plug and play will show it,) then assign a different drive letter, and that's it. if it is not working try to format it from there, but be aware that if you format it, you are going to lost everything.
the only thing you can recover ir the hardrive as hardware. not the information.

hope the information helps.

god luck,

Simple test - plug it in another pc. If it's the same then the unit has just died overnight. You might have a very small chance to recover what is on it: take out the hard disk from the case and put it in a desktop. If you're lucky it will still have enough life left in it to work long enough to copy your files from it
After that just junk it, it can't be fixed.

Narros it down to the hard drive being dead.

See: http://www.fixya.com/PostAnswer.aspx?thid=3781106&prdid=512305

for a "duplicate" question.

Using this program http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/dow...at32format.zip

Its worked perfectly on my 300GB usb drive, my PS3 can see it just fine

Oh and it works on vista as thats what i did it on..

Have you tried goggling for data recovery software. There are a lot of free ones if you had that to your search. But, I've used several paid for ones that worked. I'd try to trail versions to download and first see if can read the drive. If it can't the next thing I would do, is to dismantle the case around the hard drive, and take out the physical hard drive and switch the back pins to Slave, and add it to your computer. (make sure you have your main drive as Master) Then as a slave drive you have a lot more options to recover data.

Good Luck
Mark

sounds like the hard drive is failing... i suggest you find yourself a data recovery program soon

Try anthor system with xp os it should be work

One thing to remember is the some of the Simple drives requires the USB mini to conect to the drive and the TWO USB connects to be plugin to the computer.

It is a plug and play..nut you may need some of these tools..