Hi guys,
I have a friend who has an external USB HD ( Western Digital) which he bought 3.5 years ago. He came to me seeking for help when he realised he couldn't use the external HD ( explorer will just freeze when the drive is plugged in, although it does appear in My Computer. I couldn't access the properties page because..explorer was frozen). The drive appeared to be recognised properly by Windows under Device manager ( it reported 'this device is working properly'). I tried unistalling and reinstalling the drive, as well as roll back the drivers, all to no avail. At that time I had a USB stick with me, I tried it on that computer and it worked fine.
A little chat with him and I discovered that the drive failed after he failed to perform an operating system shutdown ( he turned off his PC by flicking off the switch at the wall because the computer wasn't responding). That happened about a week ago on his seven year old computer with XP installed. Three days later he got himself a new Dell XPS with Vista home premium, but the signs and symptoms were exactly the same on the new machine ( this machine was the one I tested the drive and my USB stick on).
I'm thinking of a possible hardware failure or maybe the MBR or the partition table is is corrupted but I would be grateful if anyone can help me out on the diagnosis as well as possible 'treatments'.
Thanks in advance.
I have a friend who has an external USB HD ( Western Digital) which he bought 3.5 years ago. He came to me seeking for help when he realised he couldn't use the external HD ( explorer will just freeze when the drive is plugged in, although it does appear in My Computer. I couldn't access the properties page because..explorer was frozen). The drive appeared to be recognised properly by Windows under Device manager ( it reported 'this device is working properly'). I tried unistalling and reinstalling the drive, as well as roll back the drivers, all to no avail. At that time I had a USB stick with me, I tried it on that computer and it worked fine.
A little chat with him and I discovered that the drive failed after he failed to perform an operating system shutdown ( he turned off his PC by flicking off the switch at the wall because the computer wasn't responding). That happened about a week ago on his seven year old computer with XP installed. Three days later he got himself a new Dell XPS with Vista home premium, but the signs and symptoms were exactly the same on the new machine ( this machine was the one I tested the drive and my USB stick on).
I'm thinking of a possible hardware failure or maybe the MBR or the partition table is is corrupted but I would be grateful if anyone can help me out on the diagnosis as well as possible 'treatments'.
Thanks in advance.
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