BleepingComputer.com: External HD problem

I have (2) toshiba external hard drives. I have been using both without having any problems for months. I recently aquired the LG Blu ray player 590, the one with the 250gb internal hard drive. It comes with a USB port for connecting external storage devices such as my hard drives to play music/video and view pictures from.

The problem im having is this:
Neither of the drives show up on either of my computers (i have 2, a laptop, and desktop, both drives worked on both computer before this)

After plugging in the drives to my blu ray player to watch a movie from them to see if the connection was working like it should, and it did, i went to plug the drives into my computers to add more information to them for later viewing on my blu ray. When i plugged them into my computer, the icon in the bottom right appears, and i have the option to safely remove hardware, the drive power light shows up, and i can feel it spinning inside so i know its moving. In the device manager there are no problems with any of the usb ports on either computer i have, other devices are working through these ports, i checked. i also uninstalled the drivers for the drives, plugged them back in and the drivers re-installed themselves. still no luck. I plugged the drive back into the blu ray to see if i could read it from there, and the device was showing up on the blu ray and i was able to see that the information was still on the drive, it showed the storage space that was left, and it was the same as before i first plugged it into the blu ray. The 3000 songs i had on one of the drives that played the first time around, werent showing up anymore, just 2 songs, and neither would play, the movies played fine though. i went to try again with my computers, still no luck.

Things i did to trouble shoot this issue:
Called LG tech support, no one there had ever heard of this issue.
Called Toshibas tech support for PC and HDD and neither of those departments have heard of this either.
Looked around online but nothing came up related.
Followed both computers troubleshooting problems with USB connections tutorial, nothing that was relevant.
Checked the functionality of the USB ports i was using with other equipment and they work.
checked device manager, no issues.
checked for updated drivers, mine are updated
uninstalled/reinstalled drivers, nothing happened

what i am starting to think happened:

The blu ray player had to add drivers to the hard drive to b able to communicate with it, which disabled its ability to be of any use on a computer.

Damaged the files or drive integrity by not having the option to be properly disconnected from the blu ray, the player just powers on and off normally, does no usb device disconect process. <--possible??

I have a gut feeling that there wont be a solution or fix for these hard drives, it seems the information on them is what is stuck on there and only will work through my blu ray now. i really hope someone out there has any idea of whats going on to be able to troubleshoot with me.

I have a 320g toshiba external 2.5" drive. It shipped with a single usb cable. It became undetectable until I tried it with the power booster usb cable from my external dvd drive. A power booster cable is a usb cable with two usb connectors on one end so you can plug it into two usb ports. Somehow the electronics on either the drive or the enclosure needed to draw more power than it did when it was new.


Should be easy to test and see if yours has the same problem. I have plugged this drive into several hundred machines with the single cable and have no idea what triggered it's need for more power.

This post has been edited by Ken-in-West-Seattle: 26 March 2010 - 08:02 AM

@ Ken-in-West-Seattle -- Thanks for that information, i will try that option, i would have never thought to try it because it was still getting power, but hopefully that solves my problem.

Are you saying to have both usb plugs connected to the computer and the other end plugged into my harddrive to get twice the power to it or are u saying the cord alone transfers more power through one usb plug connected to the computer?

http://www.amazon.com/USB-Power-Adapter-Y-...E/ref=pd_cp_e_1

power is pulled from two usb ports on one end and the other end has to match the device type of usb

I can't find my toshiba at the moment but I think it uses the small size just like the wd passports.

ok i understand. I could not find the usb cord that you mentioned at bestbuy, I found it online but i decided to get a usb hub instead, because i needed one anyways. Also, this hub plugs into the wall for power, connects to the PC through one usb port, would being plugged into the wall provide the power like plugging the hard drive to 2 usb ports, or does each port on the hub provide the same power as each port in the computer?? For the record, the hub does not make my device usable. The situation i explained in my first post regarding the hard drive is the same. I was asking around and popular opinion thinks the hard drive was reformatted by the blu ray player.

ok this time I am the one who did not read the original post closely enough before commenting. My apologies.

There are disk recovery programs you may want to try if you cannot access or have a backup of the files on your external drives.

The player formatting the external device seems plausible, but it seems it would be a function that should have warnings from the device mfg and their support should know about it.

Even apple now lets you know that it will change the format to MAC specific when you hook up a drive to use with "Time Machine".

One test you can do would be to boot with a Ubuntu live cd with the device attached. It will automatically mount it and it will show in the menu under "places" and allow you to view it. It can also tell you if the ntfs is still standard.

If it can see the files, use it to backup what you want to another drive and then play with the dedicated recovery software to see if it can repair it.

However, since this is Bluray, I suspect the issue is DRM related and will turn out to be "by design" so you cannot transfer movies once they are digitized and it is spilling over into stuff that you own once you plug it into the device.

good luck.

How would one go about accessing a drive if it doesnt show up in "My Computer" with a drive destination like F: or D: or whichever letter it is assigned, to reformat or use recovery software? The drive letter does not appear in My Computer and therefore i cannot view properties or anything, the only thing i can do with it is to properly remove it, its a weird instance, you figure if that comes up then your computer recognizes it and it would show up right?

Also i have never used Ubuntu and do not know howto, or where to get it.

I tried typing in drive destinations to see if i could access what would seem to b a ghost drive, ex E: F: which are the next two letters available on my computer..didnt not work. Would you know of a Ms-DOS command to list all drives, like "tree" or anything along those lines?

FWIW: My Computer is not the place to look for drives which are unformatted or may have problems preventing nomal user-access to files...Disk Management is the place to try. Disk Management will reflect all partitions that exist on the hard drive, whether it is formatted or not, whether the drive has problems or not...as long as the drive is not dead. It will even reflect drives which unknown file formats (formats which Windows cannot read).

Louis

Does that include external drives?

I ran compmgmt.msc to get to disk management, was that correct??

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000 --showed me how to access it.

Neither of the external HDD showed up there

This post has been edited by s1lents0ul: 31 March 2010 - 02:30 PM

burning and using a ubuntu live cd step by step with screen shots:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...ndows-computer/

Yes, even external drives which are powered/on...are reflected in Disk Management.

Louis

@hamluis -- the drives are powered/on and they are not showing up in Disk Management.

I would go to Device Manager. Are the external drives reflected there?

I would click on USB Controllers...and then uninstall both of the controllers reflected under Universal Serial Bus Controllers. then reboot and they should reinstall.

Louis

Do these external drives...each have a power supply unit or cord which plugs into AC socket?

This post has been edited by hamluis: 02 April 2010 - 02:46 PM

ive done what you suggested for the device manager all ready, twice, before posting here. the drives only have a USB connection, that powers them and transfers the data. I recently bought a USB hub, powered from the wall, plugged them into that and still no luck.

They are listed in the device manager. I am viewing devices by connection under the view tab. i double click on them and there isnt anything wrong except in the volume tab
pic of what im talking about
http://s777.photobucket.com/albums/yy52/bl...rrent=myHDD.jpg --the volumes problem

http://s777.photobucket.com/albums/yy52/bl...workingprop.jpg -- the devices working properly

This post has been edited by s1lents0ul: 02 April 2010 - 05:12 PM

Nothing wrong with those volume screens , I went through this on my systems earlier this year.

You have to click Populate in order for the drive contents to be reflected in that window. Existing partitions then should be reflected.

Louis