My drive want power up when plugged into my laptop.

Remove the battery from its compartment on the side of your Dell Inspiron laptop computer.

Remove the power adapter from its plug on the side of the Dell Inspiron (if your laptop is currently plugged into a wall outlet).

Press down and hold the "Power" button on the laptop for one to two minutes. This will dispel the excess electrical current that is built up inside the laptop.

Put the battery back inside the compartment of your Dell Inspiron.

Plug your power adapter back into the side of the Dell Inspiron. Press "Power." Your laptop computer will now turn on.

hope this helps

Does the drive have its own power supply or does it get power from the laptop? If it gets power from the laptop, does it have a plug for an external supply? If it does, try plugging in an external power supply. Sometime the laptops can not supply enough power.

If the drive is working at all, you should feel some vibration and hear the drive spin up. Can you tell if the drive is spinning up?

It sounds as though your issue is one of in adequate power. Do both the external HDD have their own power source, or are they powered through USB? if they are powered through USB it may be that as soon as the second drive spins up to transfer the files, it overwhelms the limited power of the laptop. You can try it with the laptop plugged in (though this may not provide it with more power than the battery) or by purchasing a usb hub with its own external power source so that it is not drawing power from the laptop, or purchase an external hard drive with its own power source
The other option is simpler and free, and its to copy the files first to your laptops own HDD, then unplug the source external hard drive, and then plug in the drive you want to copy to, then transfer the files from your laptops hard drive. This will of course take twice as long, but will cost you nothing.

The cable coming off the hard drive should have two usb plugs. Make sure both are plugged into the computer so that the drive is getting enough power. If it's a laptop you are plugged into the same thing applies but also make sure that the AC Adapter is plugged into the laptop when you plug the external drive into the USB ports. Sometimes it won't power the drive if it's running off battery power.

Of course it could be a problem with the Hard Drive within the enclosure if it is a constant clicking. But it sounds like it could just be the USB port not powering the drive up.

You could try on another pc as well.

Hi mjcole,
Couple things. What model WD drive do you have? Plugging the laptop adapter into the drive chassis may have fried the chassis. You can buy a new chassis and put your drive into it, or you can buy a new power supply in case the one you have has gone bad and you did not realize it. Not likely though.

The power requirements are very specific and the laptop power supply may have been to much for the WD drive.

I have had the same problem with laptops and USB drives. The external drive simply is not getting enough power.

The two solutions that seem to work are:

1) External power adapter for the USB Drive. Many external USB drives have a micro power plug next to or near the USB plug. A 5 Volt adapter (which plugs into the wall OR one that plugs into your cigarette lighter plug in a car) will cure this problem.

2) Some external USB drives come with a plug which has (2) USB plugs which plug into your laptop (laptops typically limit the power for each USB port) and one plug on the other end for your USB drive.

Try it on a different USB port or on a different computer - is this hard drive powered via a mains cable ? If so is that plugged in and switched on as well ?
Also does the hard drive have an on off switch at the back or on it anywhere that needs turning on ?
Does this hard drive have a firewire port or another way of connecting to it ?

There is a power consumption work-around untill a Y usb wire can be purchased; the main power cable must still be used at all times but this workaround should only remain temporary!!!
Simpletech should have included this so laptop users could use the drive as their capacity is better than the packaged slimmer simpletech portable backup drives for laptops, which does include the Y cable....
1) unplug usb while powered and unknown hardware is present on laptop...
2) turn power switch off from the external HDD...
3) return power switch to on from the external HDD...
4) plug in usb connection to laptop...
Autoplay should read from external HDD!!!
**** Save some $$$ and buy a Y shaped cable to provide sufficient amount of power from laptop usb
ports, cause it's necessary to use 2 of your ports to provide power in addition to the main power from HDD to wall****

ADONIS

The red light came on when I plugged this drive into my laptop and was not recognized -- until I plugged in my laptop power adapter, then it showed right up! If you're on a laptop make sure you have the hard drive power plugged in as well as your laptop power.

Did you try a different USB port?

If the drive has a power switch on the back, make sure it is off when you plug it into the laptop. Once it is plugged in, then power it on.

One other option is to plug it in before powering on your laptop and seeing if it recognizes it after boot-up.

It is always important to use the Safe Removal method when detaching USB drives from your computer...