external drive nightmare

[Sylv]

I bought a 160gb external drive that plugs into the computer to put my music on for itunes.

Was almost done and had something like 50gb in there.

Then today I open itunes and none of the songs can play, because the external drive is apparently empty! It's plugged ok, and I tried unplugging and replugging it.

It says the used space is 0 bytes and free space 0 bytes too. Wants me to format it as if it was brand new. What the heck could have happened? Virus?

ps I have mcafee antivirus until July 08

[Sylv]

It's a LaCie Little Disk:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10977

Thanks

[sid_day]

Sylvain,

(Im assuming you're using a PC)
Have you just tried using windows explorer to have a look at the disk?

Next step is to use Device manager to have a look and see whether windows is happy with the device.

If you go onto messenger now I'll talk you through a few things.

[Andrew G]

Sylv, I have an old Lacie external disk and from memory even though it's USB (plug and use) it still wanted me to install something off the CD first (Silver something or other from memory).

It could be that it needs a driver installed first to allow the computer to see it. I'm sure you've already done this though.

I would be surprised if it was a particular problem with the external as Lacie are very highly recommended.

[Sylv]

Yes Andrew it was working fine for two weeks before that (the time it took me to import most of my cds ...).

We tried various things with Sid but I just restarted my computer and the drive is still showing up as empty, with the message that i should format it. Thanks to him anyway.

The best case is it isn't recognised by the pc ... i'll take it into work see if it shows up any data on that computer ..

[George]

Don't worry Sylv you can start your new collection off with one of Snoops Xmas mix CD's

[Sylv]

no i'm not on next week's clubrun

[Roy Green]

Can't offer any expert advice, Sylv, but I recently had big problems with a Firewire 120GB Smartdisk external disk, runing off a G4 Mac ( OS X.4 system). Had it for several years, too. I'd backed up all my stuff to it progressively. Some computer good fairy must have been guiding me, because just before major problems, I'd backed up all my many image files, and most data, onto DVDs also.

The problem: first the drive disappeared, defying several software tricks to get it to mount. Then, horrors, the Mac itself would not mount - only gave me the nightmare option of reinitialising. Gave up myself, and took to AAMAC repairers. (Very good people; they are in Stafford Road, Wallington, 0845 123 5595) Raoul there got Mac back to life, with all my data and programs intact. But he said the External Drive was now useless - I've chucked it. BTW, the 'si;ver-something' software someone mentioned is probably Silverkeeper, highly recommended by my Mac man for progressive backups to an external HD.

Moral here, for both Mac and PC users is that backup time is never wasted. I'm getting a new external, and Lacie seems best option. But I've learnt the lesson to back up additionally precious data also onto DVD. Well, you wouldn't take just one spare tube when you go out for a ride, would you?

[sid_day]

I agree with Marco. I think Sylv is going to take the drive into the IT Crowd at work.

[sid_day]

A word of caution.

If your information is really important to you external hard disk drives are not appropriate backup.

They are more fragile and generally less reliable that the hard disk inside your PC or Mac (which are only expected to last 3-4 years).

If the information is important burn it to a CD (700MB) or DVD (up to 4.7 GB currenly) or possibly a memory card (you can get 16GB SD cards).

Any of you with a first generation iPod will understand (the ipod is just a sexed up external hard disk).

[Sylv]

It's not looking good as per IT man # 1.

IT man # 2 will have another look tomorrow.

[sid_day]

Oh dear. Sorry to hear that.

[Sylv]

Well, in the grand scheme of things it's not that important.

What should I do though? Take it back and ask for another brand? I would also back up on dvd (would need about 15) but not sure if my computer can do that. Probably can.

[sid_day]

If it can be reformatted and then works OK then the drive itself is OK your PC just did something nasty to it.

I noticed that your PC hard disk is formatted with FAT 32 which is not good.

It may be time to splash the cash on a new PC.

Perfectly adequate ones are available for a few hundred quid now from people like Dell.

This will have up-to-date USB and memory card connections which will work much better with external devices like your LaCie drive.

[Snoop Doug]

[quote="sid_day"]I noticed that your PC hard disk is formatted with FAT 32 which is not good.