Toshiba 160 GB usb hard drive, has clicking sound when powered up. Computer(s) don't react to unit when plugged in. Power light only indication unit is plugged in.. Suspect drive head stuck in protected position.

If the power light is not on, test the power supply or get another power supply to test with. If the power light is on, try the drive in another computer.

Locate the power cable and USB cable that came with your hard drive.

Connect cables to the appropriate locations on the back of the hard drive.

Sometimes a USB cable doubles as the power source, so you might not need a wall outlet to power the device.

Turn on your computer and allow your operating system time to load before continuing.

Plug the hard drive into the power outlet if necessary, but wait on powering up the device.

Connect the USB cable to the computer while the hard drive is in the "Off" position.

If the USB cable doubles as the power source, the device might turn itself on once connected.

Turn on the hard drive and wait until the hardware has been detected by the operating system. A message should pop up that lets you know new hardware has been detected.

Click on the "Start" menu and go to "My Computer."

Notice all your disk drives are listed in this window. The external hard drive should be visible, and holding the mouse cursor over the location will help you locate the correct drive.

Right click on the location of the drive, and move the cursor to "Open" or "Explore" and click.

Hope this helps

This a firewire drive and needs to plugged into a firewire port to spin up. If you do not have a firewire port on your computer (most PC's don't) it will not work. I don't believe a firewire to USB connector will pass enough power to the drive to spin it up.

Hello,

This is a common issue when the unit has been dropped or jarred really hard. The click is more than likely the hard drive trying to read the disk but can not access information.

With that in mind, try this: Remove all USB, SD, or any cards and attachment from you computer. If you have one at hand, connect an external monitor to the pc. Power on. If you get an image on the external monitor, restart pc and press F8, select "Enabel-low-resolution video" and move forward. If you get a picture after this, your video drivers need updating. BUT......

The clicking sound is a major concern because usually the hard drive is the only hardware part that have moving parts. (other than the optical drive or if you have a solid state hard drive.) If you have a dard drive the same size or close with an operating system on it, replace your hard drive with the GOOD drive and retry. If it boots, you need to replace the hard drive. (and hopefully you have a backup of your data)

Worst case, you may need an authorized HP agent to service your pc.

Good Luck
C2Soluitons

Try going to "My Computer" if you computer recognizes you hard drive it will be listed here.

Just click on it and it will open and you will see your files that have been saved on it.

Otherwise you can click the link below for the online manual for your unit.

http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=StorageSolutions/USB2.0PortableExtHardDrive/USB2.0PortableExtHardDriveSupport

If link does not work copy and past to browser.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Connect the cable directly to USB port, don't use a USB port hub because the energy isn't enough.

Some computers don't put out enough juice to power by USB.  Thats why some external hard drives come with two USB cords.
Don't know what you mean by react.  Do you want the computer to smile at you or something?

First thing to do is to try it on another computer to see if its not your windows playing with you.

If that doesn't work its either the USB controller inside your Hard drive box or the hard drive itself.

The only way to figure it out from there is to open the Hard drive case remove the Hard drive and either try it with another usb module that you know works or plug it right in the computer with IDE or Sata interface.

I have had a similar problems with external drives that only plug into a USB port (no ext power adapter). It is very common that the power supply fed through the USB port is inadequate to power an external hard drive. Some enclosures have a external A/C input to resolve this. Also, some computers (motherboards) only have a select number of USB ports that are powered. Since this device is detected by your other computer and not on the new one, my next attempt would be to locate a USB hub with external A/C power. There is a good chance that this will resolve the problem. By the way, when you plug in the drive does it spin up?

The clicking noise indicates that your hard drive has failed, it won't get noticed on your computer any more.