I have an external IDE harddrive. I plug the USB to the PC, switch on the power and I hear that the HDD is working(no scratch, no shar noise, just a smooth hdd is what I hear). My problem is, that the PC can't recognize the external HDD. The Windows waiting circle shows me that the PC try to install the USB components, but after about 10-20 minutes later it stops. When it try to install the USB components, the HDD name is like random characters, like this: N%:4ljks:&{{}-4USB . Is there any solution to fix this?
Windows – External HDD unrecognized
external hard drivehard drivepatausbwindows
Best Answer
You've probably tried a lot of this, but I'm going to go from the ground up to make sure nothing gets miss.
1) Make sure the port works. Plug in another USB device, preferably something with storage so you can test transfers.
2) Test or replace the USB cable to rule it out.
3) Look in your device manager. (Control Panel > System and Security > Device Manager). This is probably where you'll find the device doing something odd.
I suspect the interface board on your external drive is bad, but the only sure way to test that is take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it to a known-good controller.