external hard drive wont read please help

What could possibly be
wrong with my external
hard drive?
when i plug it in the light
comes on but it doesnt show
up on my computer. nor does
it show on disk management
or device manager. it
worked fine on my desktop
but wont show on my
laptop. the usb ports work
fine as i have tried other
things with them. any feed
back is awesome. i really need a file of this drive for a class project

 

umm maybe you need an external power source when plugging it into your laptop, not sure though

 

Same operating system?

I have things that work find on windows xp, but don't work for shit on winxp64

you might have a driver problem, one might be usb 1.0, or 1.1, the other would be usb 2.0 if that were the problem.


is one a mac, and one a PC?

What file system are you using FAT32? NTFS?

 

Here's some info I found:

External Drives

Connecting an external drive is much easier than installing an internal drive because you usually don't need to open the computer case. The drive attaches to a connector either at the front or the back of the computer case; power is supplied by a separate adapter.

Available connections. Your PC is likely to have one or more USB 2.0 connections; however it's less likely to have either FireWire or external SATA connections. FireWire and SATA connections are relatively simple to add, assuming your computer has at least one unused expansion slot.

If your PC has only USB 1.1 ports, you will need to add a USB 2.0 adapter in order to obtain usable transfer rates between your external USB drive and your computer. And if you need to add a USB 2.0, FireWire, or SATA adapter to your computer, you will need to open your computer's case and install the card.

Add a USB 2.0, FireWire, or SATA interface card. Follow steps 3 through 6 of the instructions in the SATA section above to install your new interface card. FireWire and USB 2.0 adapters are designed with ports on their bracket so the ports are accessible outside the computer case.

For: Step 4 of Internal SATA Drives

Insert the SATA controller card into an empty slot in your computer's motherboard.


Connect a USB drive. Adding an external USB drive to your computer is as simple as connecting two wires. One wire is the USB 2.0 connection and the other connects to the drive's power supply.



1. Follow the manufacturer's instructions, which generally instruct you to plug the drive's power supply into an AC power outlet and then connect it to your drive. The CMS 40GB drive we used takes power from one USB connector and moves data through a second USB cable. This is convenient for notebook users who are not near power outlets. Most external USB drives use standard power adapters that connect to AC power and then to the drive.


For computers running Windows 2000/Me/XP, plug one end of the USB cable into an available USB 2.0 port on your computer and attach the other end to your drive. Windows will detect your drive and add it to your system.


Open My Computer and you will see your drive listed among the other drives; you can now use this drive.

If you're using Windows 98 Second Edition, you should follow the same steps; however, when Windows detects the new drive it will ask for software drivers. Use the instructions and CD that shipped with your drive to add the drive's software drivers to your computer. After you have installed the drivers, your new drive is available for use.




Hope this helps.

 

In the Windows "control panel" click on Add Hardware. If it doesn't detect it automatically, try selecting it from the list.