20 Most Recent IBM TravelStar 40GN 40 GB Hard Drive Questions & Answers

Hello and Welcome to FixYa!

Please explain your query in a bit detail. What error/ fault exactly, you are facing..
Make Sure, that you are connecting the device properly, and the device is not disabled from BIOS, also the device didn't have any hardware error/problem. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Concerned.

if your computer came with a motherboard disc the drivers could be on it 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 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, sometimes the wires inside the cable will be damaged due to bending or stretching or placing heavy equipment upon the cable, 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 hope this helps

You need to purchase Windows Vista, once you have the disc with you, then you can start the Widnows installation process. during the process you can choose to format your hard drive and install Windows.

Hard drive passwords are embedded in the firmware of the drive itself. You need to try to find out what the password was.

There is an article about this at this site.

Can you "read" any files from the external disk-drive?
Can you "delete" any files/folders from the external disk-drive?
Can you click 'File' and 'New' and 'Folder' to create a new folder on the drive?

In that case the disk or its case has died. Take the disk out of the case and put it directly in a desktop. If now it's recognized and accessible then the case has died - if not then the disk itself has died.

Click Start
Click with the SECOND (usually the RIGHT) mouse button on My Computer.
Click Manage.
Click Storage

The "Disk Administrator" will start, and your disk-drive may show up as being "unformatted".
Use this utility to create a partition, and to format the partition.
Then, the "empty" partition will show-up in My Computer.

microsoft tends to have generic drivers for porta drives but i would go to IBM's site and check under support for a driver

If you have forgotten your BIOS or Hard Drive Password for this model, there is a master code that you can obtain from Dell Support. Simply call, Email, or use Online Chat from http://support.dell.com and give them your Service Tag, and they can help your out from there. If it is a Windows profile password you have forgotton, try accessing the Administrator account from Safe Mode, and remove the password for the user account locked out.

hello, Yes, absolutely. It will work without a problem.

Regards

Amar Sondhi

Unless it's windows 98 you don't need a driver. If your computer can't see it, it's probably broken. Try plugging it in to another computer and see if it can see it

Not much, if it is used. Dell had trouble with those in the inspiron notebooks, and they are replacing them with western digital. I did some checking you are lucky to get $5.00. I would try to sell it at ebay.

The IBM webite will have the software located under the support link. You will need to lookup your specific model # and then the files will appear. Download and install those that you need. Hope this helps.

try set the jumbers to master Drive not limted drive!

I assume you can't see it in Windows? When you connect it can you hear the drive spin up? If not then there is a hardware problem - motor failure, jammed platter. If you hear it clicking or clunking then it is likely to be a stuck head or actuator. If so sometimes you can give the drive a sharp **** to and fro to try and spin the platter - don't do to long though. If this doesn't work then you would need the data removed by a data retrieval company.
If the drive does spin freely you may be able to fix by doing in order:
running check disk (properties of drive then tools)
using a data recovery program of which there are a few
using commercial data retrieval company.
Hope this helps

My advice is start fresh with a new hard drive, install XP on it, then use partitioning software while running XP to create an NTFS partition on the remaining space of your old hard drive if you must keep your FAT32 partition.

An alternate method would be go to the manufacturer of your hard drive and download their partitioning software. Often it will run from a floppy or boot cd and you can partition as you like using it. Keep in mind, repartitioning a drive, especially an older one, has a bad habit of making the old existing data unreadable if you're not experienced so make sure you have a back up.