Maxtor ext hd no long recognized by My Computer

Hi,

I purchased a Maxtor One Touch II external hard drive. I've already returned it to Maxtor two times, receiving a refurbished drive in return, and both times the drives lost my data. Now this new refurbished drive has lost my data, making it three in a row within a period of 6 months.

The drive is 300Gb and it's almost full. I made arrangements with Maxtor for a replacement of the drive while it was still operational but they couldn't send one to me for two weeks and now My Computer doesn't recognize it. I've tried connecting it with a USB connection instead of having it firewired, I've tried switching it with the power cord and cable of other Maxtor external hard drives that I have, and I tried connecting it to another pc, all of which failed to open the drive. The files on this drive represent about 6 months of hard work.

I called Maxtor Technical Help and I was told that they wouldn't transfer the files from this failed drive to the new drive that they'll be mailing to me in about two weeks. I was also informed that I could take the drive to have the files recovered, but the cost would be between $500.00 and $2,500.00, but that doing so would void my warrenty.

Is there a way for me to open the drive to retrieve my files myself? If a professional company can do it, then I should be able to do it if I have the proper equipment and the knowledge. The worst I can do is fail to successfully retrieve the files but since I can't access the them already, I'll be no worse off.

Denise

 

See how you go with Spinrite over at Gibson's. Ain't cheap though.

 

Maxtor ext hd no longer recognized by My Computer

Thanks for the tip Hipster. $89.00 is worth it if it'll work.


I was checking around the Maxtor site when I came upon this page:

https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...lh_adp.php?p_faqid=464&p_sid=xT8VeV3i&p_lva=#

Are these steps for the master drive or external hard drives?

 

Don't see why you can't apply those steps to an external drive. Try that first. Might be as simple as what they say.

Does the drive show up in BIOS?

 

Maxtor ext hd no longer recognized by My Computer

No, the drive doesn't show up in BIOS, which is a very bad sign.

What I'm interested in next is where it says at the Maxtor site:

I found nothing that says CMOS or clock.

 

I think they mean the BIOS setup. If it is showing the correct time then it maybe isn't the battery. Maybe because it is usb it does not show up in the BIOS. Hopefully someone can answer that one.

If you look at your mother board manual it will tell you how to reset you cmos to default although that probably isn't the problem.

Other than that it looks like the drive is dead.

 

I had a blond moment . . . forgive me. I'm so used to just clicking that I didn't notice the heading of CMOS and, another blond moment, I was looking for clock when I was looking at the clock.

Anyway, the clock is working and has the correct time/date so there was no need to reset it. But I have 3 Maxtors and I have 2 turned on . . . the one that isn't working and one that is. Neither of them are showing up in BIOS. I ran DxDiag and a Belarc Advisor and the working Maxtor showed up in the reports, the one that isn't working didn't.

I don't have a manual for anything for my pc. It was made for me by someone who's no longer available. I don't want to change anything in BIOS, even to default, because only the failed Maxtor isn't working.

I should have deleted some of the unimportant info from another drive and backed up the important info that's on the failed drive . . . hindsight is always perfect.

The only other thing that I can think of is to take the drive out of the case and connect it internally. The only problem with that is if I still can't get the info from the drive, my warranty will be void and I'll be out $300, so I've got something to think about.

Thanks for your help Hipster . . . I appreciate it.

 

I read somewhere about trouble with Maxtors over 127gigs in capacity. Apparently they need special Maxtor software. Is your 300 gigger all in one partition? Someone else please step in as I know this comment of mine is not very helpful but may guide you to investigate another avenue for a solution. Sorry, I cannot help further but someone from MG will come along with a better idea. Bazza

 

Firewire/usb drives don't show up in bios.

 

Maxtor ext hd no longer recognized by My Computer

Thanks Coleman, I didn't know that for sure but when the working hd didn't show up, I guessed that was the case.

Bazza, the software came with the drive. As it is, it doesn't have to be partitioned because it's external and the software installs the drive. If I decide to open the case and make it an internal drive, I'll see what adapters, software, etc, it needs then. I already have 2 internal drives but I'll remove the 80G F drive and use that connection. Thanks for your suggestion, I'll remember it if I run into a problem.

Denise

 

Denise_M;

u may have tried this already if u have windows opr system try the following
with the pc powered down plug in the usb connection to the external hd and
connected to the pc also have the power plug to the hd un pluged (not
running), startup the pc to the full windows screen and then apply power the
the external hard drive. watch to see if the new device icon appears in the
lower right of the widows screen if it does check my computer for the hard
drive and see if u can explore the drive.
if u have the drive but can not read it leave the usb connected an remove
the power from the external hard drive wait until the drive has stopped then
re power it back up refresh my computer and try to explore the drive.
the external hard drives have what appears to be a protect in them and will
lock out at times.
now if all else is bad and u can not read the drive and do not want to have the maxtor folks work on it u can purchase software to read the drive but is it on the costly side find a good pc store or on line store I used StompXsofT software to recover the files from the bad drive. u can also use parition magic or similiar softwave to see if u can read the drive but use care not to alter the parition.

hope it helps
asturnacle