USB hard drive not working on other PCs

[catso]

Hopefully a simple solution.

I have a USB 3.0 hard drive, it's a small pocket sized device used to store/transfer files, the idea being a backup/transfer between home and office.

It works fine on the 1st laptop (the one I loaded the files from) but won't recognise on the 2nd, or indeed any other computer that I've tried it on.

Both fairly new laptops running Windows 10 but when I plug it into another PC it powers up but is just not seen. Presumably some simple error on setup/format etc.?

Any tips on how to make it work on any PC so that I can use it as the portable drive it's supposed to be?

TIA

[nxi20]

This is a useful little utility to debug this:

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.htm...

I've had success using it to delete the device definition & then re-inserting the problem device.

[mmm-five]

Has it been formatted without assigning a drive letter?

[FA57 VWT]

Can you see it using this tool -

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/st...

[catso]

FA57 VWT said:

Can you see it using this tool -

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/st...

Yes, on the 1st PC, i.e. the one I loaded the files from but not on the other.

[catso]

mmm-five said:

Has it been formatted without assigning a drive letter?

No, shows as drive 'e' on the 1st laptop.

[xeny]

catso said:

No, shows as drive 'e' on the 1st laptop.

Does it show in disk management on any of the other computers?

[catso]

xeny said:

Does it show in disk management on any of the other computers?

No.

[xeny]

catso said:

No.

Presuming it still shows on the first PC, I'm out of ideas. Is it a common brand or something obscure?

Are you plugging it directly into the computer or a USB hub or similar? Maybe there isn't enough power for it to spin up properly.

[Condi]

Just upload everything to the cloud?

Google Drive is 30GB of free space. OneDrive is 1GB free (?). Upload unlimited photos to Google Photos.

[FA57 VWT]

Any usb errors in device manager on the other pc’s?

[Easternlight]

xeny said:

Presuming it still shows on the first PC, I'm out of ideas. Is it a common brand or something obscure?

Are you plugging it directly into the computer or a USB hub or similar? Maybe there isn't enough power for it to spin up properly.

Another vote for not enough power. I have one of these that will only work with a Y USB lead so that you can take the power from two sockets.

Edited by Easternlight on Saturday 31st October 09:46

[catso]

Easternlight said:

xeny said:

Presuming it still shows on the first PC, I'm out of ideas. Is it a common brand or something obscure?

Are you plugging it directly into the computer or a USB hub or similar? Maybe there isn't enough power for it to spin up properly.

Another vote for not enough power. I have one of these that will only work with a Y USB lead so that you can take the power from two sockets.

Edited by Easternlight on Saturday 31st October 09:46

I think you're onto something here: last night I formatted the drive, in case there was a problem in how it was setup? made no difference so I was looking for a Y cable - I have one from a portable USB DVD unit but it has the wrong sized plug (small USB) but I have a 4 way USB 3.0 hub and gave that a try and it works fine. I don't know if the hub has some kind of power unit in it? but whatever it has, it works fine if I connect through it.

The one thing I have discovered is that laptop no. 1 is USB 3.0 whereas the others I've tried are USB 2.0, does 3.0 have more power?

Maybe a 'Y' connector with the correct plugs would work? it would be a neater solution if it did but with the (small) hub it works fine.

Thanks all for the help.

[xeny]

catso said:

The one thing I have discovered is that laptop no. 1 is USB 3.0 whereas the others I've tried are USB 2.0, does 3.0 have more power?

Maybe a 'Y' connector with the correct plugs would work? it would be a neater solution if it did but with the (small) hub it works fine.
:

USB 2.0 has 2.5W available. USB 3.0 has 4.5W.

Y lead USB cables used to be reasonably common before USB 3.0 was released.

[sparkyhx]

does the target pc work with other USB's? Work related PC's and laptops can have their USB ports disabled for security reasons

[catso]

'Y' USB lead arrived today, works fine on 4 different computers.

Odd thing is that it works if just one (the thicker, main cable) USB plug of the 'Y' is plugged in so, maybe there was a problem with the original cable despite working on one computer?

Anyway all sorted now with a £4 cable, thanks for the help.