Many of us face a problem while copying data from USB External hard-drives on our old computers. This problem is faced more with old computers as compared to new computers. The same portable USB Hard works fine on some computers, may not work well on your old computer.

There can be many possible reasons for the same. In this article I will share with you some simple ways to test and fix this problem.

Fix: 

Power Related Problems With USB External Hard Disk

Most of the USB external hard drives work on power extracted from the USB port only. This power is used to spin the hard disk motor which is necessary to the read and write on the Hard disk. Standard USB ports deliver a Maximum current of 500mA at a voltage which may vary between 4.4V to 5.25V, this means a Max power output of 2.5 Watt. This is usually enough to operate an External hard disk.

However some old computers with old USB ports and old power supplies may get a degraded current rating which are way below 500mA. These ports can run pen drives well as they require little power compared to a USB hard disk. On such computers, there is a simple way to make these drive work using a USB- Y-Cable. Like the one which is shown in the image below:

These cables are usually included when you buy an external hard drive or External USB hard drive casing. The correct way of using USB-Y-Cable is to plug the two USB ports on same end to the Computer and one port on the other end to the USB Hard Disk Drive. Connecting the two ports of USB-Y-Cable to the two USB ports of the computer uses the current capacity of two ports to drive the Hard Disk, this means that if the max current capacity of one ports is only 250 mA, the combined current capacity will be approximately 500mA which will ensure that the USB HDD can get sufficient power to run.

In case you still face problems, then see the solution below to fix the file system problems. If that too does not work consider upgrading to a new high capacity Power Supply Unit.

File System Problems With External HDD

One of the most common reasons for this kind of problem is hard disk file system errors. These errors can be fixed by running a disk scan. See our tutorial below to fix this problem:

Fix USB Device Malfunction Error

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

Portable USB Hard Disk Does Not Work Properly On My Old Computer is a post from TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles

We have received a problem from some of our readers, who are not able to access their USB pen drives and other portable devices.

As according to the readers their system was successfully detecting USB devices, but may be after some kind of virus attack their system now does not detect any type of USB devices.

Let’s see how we correct this problem.

Fix:

In normal cases when you think your system is not detecting pen drives, it could be a case when your computer detects your pen drive but does not show up in my computer.

Method 1:

This could be due to no free drive letter has been assigned to your pen drive, you can refer to this post to know what to do in that case.

Still, if you don’t see your pen drive under device manager or if you see some question mark suddenly on your drive in device manager then there could be problem with your registry also,

Read method 2 given below

Method 2:

If none of your USB devices detect ,this could be due to wrong registry entries. i.e you need to delete UpperFilters and the LowerFilters registry values.

Follow the procedure listed below to correct your registry:

1. Open Start >> Run, and type "regedit" (without double quotes), and click OK.

2. Locate UpperFilters registry value. it resides in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E980-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
Note: If you receive an error when you try to delete the registry subkey, you may not have correct permissions to edit the subkey.

4. Locate LowerFilters registry value. It resides in the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

5. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
6. Exit Registry Editor and restart your system.

We hope this helps to fix the trouble.

Technorati Tags: pen-drive-not-detected,usb-drive-not-detected

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

My computer does not detect pen drives and other USB devices like iPod or external hard drive is a post from TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles

You may have faced a problem when you insert your pen drive and it gets detected very easily but it doesn’t show up as a drive icon in My Computer. The computer detects the pen drive but data on pen drive is not visible as the pen drive is not visible in My Computer (Explorer).

This problem occurs mainly when windows XP fails to allocate a drive letter to your portable drive(pen drive). It occurs mostly with new pen drives connected to your computer for the first time. If you face such problem then it may not be the pen drive’s fault, rather it may be windows trouble.

Fix:

You can fix this issue by following some simple steps given below.

1. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

2. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window will appear.

3. On this disk management window, you can see some drives including the portable drive. Right click on your portable drive and click change drive letter and paths.

4. Now a assign a new drive letter which is not being used by any of your drives in My Computer.

5. After assigning the new drive letter your portable drive will show up in my computer with other drives

We hope the above solution will help to fix this trouble.

Technorati Tags: usb-drive-not-opening,usb-drive-problem

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2010 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

USB pen drive detected but doesn’t show up in My Computer is a post from TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles