External HD died?

[c3po]

so before i open this thing up and start poking around my mother in law got me this external hd a year ago and yesterday it stopped working.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822100028

when i plug it into the USB, and turn on the HD (switch on the enclosure) the blue ring light on top of the enclosure comes on and then turns off, the HD still spins as if its on. no clicking sounds at all coming from the HD. power is going to it for its spinning.

however before when it was working the blue ring light would flash indicating it was on and then windows would see it and blah blah i would have a harddrive. as i mentioned before it comes on, turns off (not the harddrive) and windows doesn't see it at all.

any ideas as to wtf is going on there?

i'm thinking of taking the enclosure apart and putting it in another enclosure. at this point i have no idea wtf is wrong with it or what to do.

[shifty]

i've done that previously, and usually the damn things only have 1yr warranty, so that's void anyway.

taking them apart is usually pretty easy. i would pull the drive out and slap it into a new case or attach to a computer to see if it's still alive. if it is, the case is probably shot, or the power supply to the case is shot (either is possible).

i take it you tried attaching it to another computer using a totally different USB cable to rule out local computer problems and cable problems?

[c3po]

not yet. i was going to when i got home today. i'm leaning more towards the enclosure being shot. i'll check all that when i get home. thanks for the tips shifty.

[c3po]

OH on a side note shifty:

me: Originally Posted by Ranshackle
I like Hasselhoff's ass better.
Rans: ha
me: shifty still uses that as a signature
Rans: haha
i still remember that thread
sadly enough
me: lol

[shifty]

Best. Comment. Ever.

[poppinfresh]

i have had problems with external drives for 2 different reasons:
1) plugging into what the computer sees as an external hub. sometimes even internal ones are seen this way, depending on if it's on the mainboard, or an add-on
2) sometimes it requires a power source aside from USB.

has your external config or hubs changed at all? power sources?

[c3po]

its a 3.5. it uses its own power cord. sources haven't changed. its plugged right into the wall then usb is plugged into the laptop.

[Dr. Death]

Some very large external hard drives are actually configured as TWO drives in a RAID 0 configuration to get a large capacity from two smaller, cheaper drives. This effectively doubles the failure rate, because if either drive fails, you lose the data.

I'm hoping in your case that it's enclosure- or power-related though.

[Ninjahedge]

I am still wondering why it is still so expensive to get a RAID-5 external these days....