I have a Hitachi simpledrive 250 gig. I have a dell pc. Whenever I want to access the simple drive, it disconnects, make a beeping noise (and feels like the drive isn't spinning, but is instead sputtering). It will beep for a different amount of time (usually just a few seconds) and then reconnect, and prompt me, asking what I want to do with the drive (play with win media, open folder, etc.). This happens only when the drive sits for five to ten minutes without being accessed. This is big pain for me because right now I have all of my music on the external, and each time I try to play something (even if I just paused it for the duration of a youtube video) is will disconnect, and then iTunes can't find the file. And I do in fact have both usb cords plugged into my pc. Thanks in advance!

SOURCE: Hitachi 500GB External- strange tones at startup, won't recognize

It sounds to me like there is a seek problem.Is this the sound coming from the inside the box itself? If so, that is NOT good. Usually when you hear crazy noises like that from a hard drive, its internal damage. I imagine when you tripped on the cable and it fell to the ground, it exceeded the g-force rating for the drive. That and the fact it was under power and doing read seeks, the heads could have crashed. I guess you could disassemble the unit and hook up the hard drive as a slave inside your computer and bypass the external unit to see if that solves it. Its worth a try. It really does sound like its not a good situation. Sorry about that. I hope this helps!

SOURCE: Hitachi 500 GB sata Hard Drive

i have just format my compter now im haveing problums geting my sata hard drive back in i have the floppy disc what came whith it not shore how to install it

SOURCE: Hitachi External Hard Drive (500GB) Beeping sound

this happend to me with the same drive after trying several programs to retrieve my data i discovered that these programs could not see my drive because it was in raw format instead of fat 32, download a free program called zar, zero assumption recovery. This will take about 4-5 days to run but let it run and it will find the fat 32 section of your drive, after its done or if you get as far as 70%. restart your computer plug in your drive turn it on and walk away for 10 minutes, come back and go to my computer and see if you drive is acting like normal. You can copy and past all your stuff to a different drive any file that says cannot copy because its damaged DO NOT CLICK IT, it will freeze your drive just get all you can and when your done go to my computer , right click , go to properties and do a hard drive check to repair bad sectors, if u have insurance format when done and send it back thats what im doing, i hope this helps.

SOURCE: have new drive Hitachi SimpleDrive Mini 250GB USB

Most USB hard drives require an external (or secondary) power cable to power the devices when connected to laptop or netbook computers. In some cases, even older desktop computer models will require a similar cable.
This is due to the specifications for the USB standard as it dictates the amount of voltage that a USB port can deliver. Some USB ports are considered "powered" and are sometimes identified by the USB logo and a small "+" sign to indicate the added voltage.
Note: Not all manufacturers use this logo, so if your computer doesn't have this variation of the logo, it doesn't necessarily mean the USB port is not powered.
This added voltage supplies additional current to power smaller devices, such as portable (or 2.5") USB hard drives. However, in the even that the USB port is not powered, then only the minimum amount of current is supplied. This should be enough to slightly power the drive, but not sustain it, thus causing the clicking noise and there isn't enough current running through to move the arm that reads the data on the hard drive.
Chances are that the USB ports on your Asus Eee are not powered and won't allow your hard drive to run until either a secondary cable is purchased or if you use a powered USB hub instead.
The secondary cable looks a lot like a Y-USB cable with one end that connects to your hard drive and the other end consisting of 2 USB plugs that both connect to existing USB ports on your netbook. Between the 2 USB ports, they can draw enough current to power the hard drive - the downside being that if you only have 1 USB port you cannot utilize the cable or if you have 2, they will both be occupying the ports while the hard drive is in use. These cables can cost about $1-7 depending on brand and can be found online in retailers such as eBay & CompUSA.
The USB powered Hub is a more expensive solution, ranging at about $10-25, but is the higher recommended of the 2 solutions since it will provide its own power supply to the tiny device, will use on 1 of your USB ports and since it's a hub, they usually have anywhere from 3-5 additional USB ports (all powered) for you to use, if needed. Some even include built-in memory card readers and they do not require any additional drivers or software to install and can work on any desktop/laptop/netbook.

Igor Mateski

• 277 Answers
• Posted on Jan 31, 2011

SOURCE: The hitachi external hard drive

It sounds as your hard drive has a logical failure. To remedy this download the EASEUS Partition Manager Free, and run a partition recovery or partition repair. Hopefully, the unplug of the hard drive did not cause any mechanical defects and you will be able to fix the logical/software issue with Easeus.

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