External Hard Drive Issues

[Grimbol610]

Hi guys, I have searched the forum and not been able to find any solution to my problem so here it goes.

Basically I have an Iomega external hard drive which is 1.5TB. I have had the hard drive plugged in a USB port on the back of my computer for best part of a year and have never had any issues with it.
The other day I turn on my computer and instead of it appearing in "My Computer" all I got was a warning in the bottom right of the screen saying the typical "USB device not recognized" so i plugged the hard drive into, for want of a better word, USB extender, not sure what its called but it takes one port on my computer but gives me four extra ports on my desk.
So, after plugging my hard drive into this extender the hard drive works just fine but the only problem is it is taking a while to load anything from the hard drive and it is making the video's, music and games I have stored on the drive run really slowly.
I was just wondering if there was any way that I could make the ports recognize my hard drive again.
The strangest thing is that the ports are completely fine if I plug any other device into them, so this has me really baffled.
If there is any extra information about my system you need just let me know and I will provide what I can.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[stroyal]

Welcome to TechIMO!

The "Extender" is a HUB.

Dose the HUB have it's own power source?
Will it work in the port the hub is plugged into?

Is this a 3.5" or 2.5" drive?

The HUB should not slow it down, assuming they are both USB2.
The max power available without a separate power source is 500ma @5v.
What is the rating on the drive?

[Grimbol610]

Hi, Thanks for the welcome.

The hub doesnt have its own power source it is powered by its USB connection.
The drive will not work in ANY port on the computer i have tried them all.
Not sure what you mean by 3.5" or 2.5" drive?
Im not sure the hub is USB2 because it is a very old hub.
And the input rating on the drive is 12v.

[stroyal]

That is strange but I have seen it before with a laptop, and a 2,5" drive.
In that case I got an overloaded USB power warning, and the laptop shutdown the buss,
I don't think there would be a message with a desktop.

The drive still worked if we powered it, as it had a jack.
Could be the laptop was tired.

Just plugging it into a different USB plug should reset the port.

If your hub is is not powered, it gets it's 5v/500ma power from the port.
The drive is probably12volt, but the enclosure, is 5volt, transforming it to 12, for the drive.
Most enclosures have a 5v input, but I suppose an old one could have a 12v input.


Now for 3.5 vs 2.5, and powered, vs underpowered enclosures.

In general 3.5" drives are desktop drives, and usually need their own power, as the use more than 500ma.

2.5' drives are laptop drives, and usually have no power source of it's own, and run directly off a USB ports power.


The only way to figure it out is trying other devices.

A powered hub could help, if it is only the power portion of the hub, that has a problem.

I wouldn't get anything but a powered hub.
Once you start using a lot of USB devices, you are going to run out of power, as an unpowered hub, as well as no hub, just keeps dividing up the original 500ma.