Hi I have a Lacie External Harddrive 500gb, when I connect my hard drive to my computer it does not open, instead it gives me a message saying that " disk is not formatted"?

Inside the LaCie D2 250GB (300770) external harddrive's case, is a 250GB IDE (PATA) harddrive that is 3.5 inches across in width.

A desktop computer sized harddrive. (May be a Western Digital WD25000JB)

The harddrive plugs into a small circuit board, (Bridge board), and the circuit board has a USB port on it.

Using this Western Digital Passport for an example,

http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/storage/wd-passport-250gb/p3.jpg&1=1

Scroll down to the second photo, and left-click on it. The case of the external harddrive is shown open.
Inside is a 2.5 inch laptop sized harddrive.
An aluminum tape strip covers the small circuit board, attached at the back of the harddrive.

The second photo down on this page, shows you the small interface circuit board, that the harddrive plugs into, with the aluminum tape removed.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/wd-passport-250gb_2.html

(Another design has wires coming from the small circuit board, to an interface the harddrive plugs into )

It is this small circuit board that goes bad in a LaCie. QUITE common.

Solution?

Simple.
1) Obtain a 3.5 inch IDE external enclosure
2) Remove the 3.5 IDE harddrive from the LaCie's case.
3) Install the harddrive out of the LaCie into the external 3.5 IDE enclosure.

An example of a 3.5 IDE (PATA) external enclosure,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1733195&CatId=2779

For additional questions please post in a Comment.
Regards,
joecoolvette

just run disk management and enable entire volumne on the Lacie

is the scratchy sound coming from inside your lacie or outside ??

it might be a power problem trying to connect to your lacie but unable to find the device or a dirty hard drive the reader arm skipping across the platters you could give your lacie a firm tap on the side to free up the reader arm

click start control panel administrive tools ,computer management ,device manager look through all of your devices if you see a yellow question mark?or exclamation mark ! or red x
right click to reinstall drivers or
if you can see your usb but its not working
ports(com&lpt)right click update driver
sometimes the wires inside the cable will be damaged due to bending or stretching or placing heavy equipment upon the cable,
just replace the cable of the hard disk, when you plugged the external disk drive you got that windows could recognize the USB device change the cable everything should work fine again,

check the USB leads that attach to the motherboard usually red-white-green-black make sure they are securely seated and have no dust build up on them dust will cause static and a lot of unforeseen problems also make sure the computers Ram and Cmos battery are securely seated
if this fails to fix the problem
you might have to install a usb 2 or 3 card they are cheap and easy to install you can buy these on Ebay very cheap
hope this helps

Hi,
Sorry nothing to do your harddrive is dead. you might be able to open the case and replace the harddrive with a new one. Try searching google or youtube on how to do that.
Regards.

You gotta partition it first. http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/d9a4d35e-efdf-406c-a049-0860180129a71033.mspx

Except don't format the ones that already have a Letter (or u screwed urself there)

The problem that has been inherent with all LaCie external harddrives, is the interface in the case itself.

Interface:
All external harddrives have a Style of harddrive that is used in a laptop, or one that is used in a desktop computer.
Laptop harddrives are 2-1/2 inches across in width.
Desktops are 3-1/2 inches across.
Your LaCie will have a 3.5, (3-1/2) inch desktop style harddrive, inside the case.

There are two main Types of harddrives.
IDE and SATA. (There is also a newcomer. SSD. SSD isn't being used in LaCie external harddrives at the moment, to my knowledge)

Your LaCie will use a SATA harddrive inside it.
This is an example of an average SATA harddrive,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hdd.jpg
The photo of this harddrive is tilted at an angle, that doesn't readily show the interface connection, but it helps to explain.

At the bottom of this harddrive in the photo, and to the left, is the interface area.

Viewing the harddrive, look at the four metal pins on the extreme right of the harddrive. To the left of these pins is the Jumper pin area. (Has a white jumper on two of those pins)

To the left of the Jumper area is an opening, and to the left of that, is a long slot. The first small slot area is for the 7-pin Interface cable.
(Data cable) The next slot to the left, is for the 15-pin power cable.

This 7-pin Interface mates up to socket holes in a connector, of the case of the LaCie external harddrive.

It is this interface connector, inside the LaCie external harddrive case, that is the problem.
Solution?
Buy a quality, in-expensive External Enclosure, take the harddrive out of the LaCie, and install it in this enclosure.

Examples of 3.5 Sata External Enclosures,
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=2780&name=3.5-eSATA-enclosure&Nav=|c:2778|&Sort=0&Recs=10
(From $15 to $35, is a good range for a decent external enclosure)

try it on different usb ports on your system
try replacing the cable which connects the hard drive with the usb port
if this does not works the problem lies in the portable hard drive and i think it would be under warranty period so get it checked

try to unstull the software and renstull it again

You're not missing any step at all, because with SATA hard drive if its really working your computer should
automatically detect it and since this hard drive suddenly stop working there's a possibility that its already
fried but if you want you can try this hard drive again to a different computer and if still not detected by
second computer its already dead.........

The disk in side is jammed, try throwing the harddrive like a frizbe but dont let go. That might help unsick the drive