Exter hard drive stopped along with all other USB

[kmria]

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have windows XP pro OS and have worked around computers for while so do have basic knowledge of it. I have seagate desktop 500GB hard drive. Connected via USB it was working for until one day when I was booting my computer it came up with error (some thing to do with this seagate hard drive) so I simply unpluged it and restarted computer. It did bot up but now I can't see my external seagate hard drive.

First I thought it was the drive but then I tried plugging other USB device like iPhone or camera but neither is working. Keyboard and mouse are also via USB and they are working fine. I tried plug and play in bios can't find it and in services it is enabled.

I have given up on trying now... oh and btw, when I connect this same seagate hard drive to my laptop it works fine.

Please help me sorry for the long essay!!!

k~

 

[raybay]

It appears the problem may be in your BIOS. What is reported there when you examine the BIOS at first boot?
What is the brand and model of motherboard or PC? What is the quality of your power supply, and the power adapter on your external hard drive?
Have you examined your Device Manager in Hardware of System in the Control Panel to look for red X and Yellow warning labels?

 

[kmria]

wow, this was a quick response...

Yeah I checked on device manager and also in disk management. but no luck. As for your other question about computer details... let me get back at you.. i have no clue how to find it bare with me..

 

[kmria]

hey, i have no idea how to get this details... do you know any easy way?

 

[raybay]

When you first boot, you should get a quickly flashed message on how to access the BIOS. If not, it is usually brought up by pressing one of these keys at startup: F10, F11, F12, ESC, DEL, F1, or F2. Or you can check the manufacturers site for the motherboard.
Scroll through the many pages of the BIOS for items turned off or disabled.
This problem sometimes occurs if there is too much demand on the USB system, with several other things plugged in. One way around it is to install a good quality (We like Adaptec) USB card with four usb ports and two firewire ports in a PCI slot. These are better powered. The Adaptec provides equal power to all slots, where some others have only one power source serving all slots which means their power gets reduced by the number of items plugged in.
Then again, it could be a different problem entirely, but I cannot imagine what. Have you tried removing and reinstalling the software to see if it is just perhaps an abnormal glitch?

 

[kmria]

right,

I got GIGABYTE motherboard and in my bios i am not getting any such option as plug and play. I DO have lots of stuff connected to USA so raybay, you might be right. I tried taking the front USB wires out and then see if it works but no such luck.

Now i can live without external hard drive but I do need my scanner and printer and over all USB connectivity.

What you guys suggest I should do now? I HAVE TO HAVE THIS USB connectivity and i am not going to spend money on new computer just coz of this. I don't mind buying new hardware if it helps...