20 Most Recent IO Magic Corporation GigaBank (I250HD35) 250 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive - Page 4 Questions & Answers

Depending on your iPod, may have to go see if there is a driver on-line to download and reinstall on your computer. Short of that, you may want to try a DEFRAG, or else try and go back to a RESTORE past RESTORE point and see what happens. Even try Virus Scan and Ad-Aware scan for Bugs that may have infected the file that reads your iPod. Try to think of any software updates you may have made shortly to the iPod not be identified...

I devised these simple steps that tend to remedy quite a few issues with most USB portable / external hard drives and devices (though not always) most of it can also be uses on macs too.

A few things to check but assumes USB and Windows for other interfaces / operating systems similar steps may be adapted to suit.

1. Ensure it is connected directly to the computer to a USB 2.0 port not a USB 1.0 port as this can have effects on performance and reliability

2. Use only the cables that came with it NOT one that fits that may have been lying around or is longer. Not all USB cables are equal even though they should be)

3. Do not connect through an external USB HUB unless that hub is USB 2.0 AND has its own power supply.

4. Use ONLY the power supply that came with it if it has an external power supply Don’t use any other unless you know it has both the same voltage and current rating e.g. 12V 500mA anything rated below that would not work properly.

5. Always use the same port for connecting your devices. Some devices do not like being switched about. If switched they may want to install software / drivers again. This can be especialy true if you move a HUB to another port

If you checked and fixed anything there and still have issues then check your hardware from CONTROL PANEL / SYSTEM / HARDWARE.
Any exclamation marks by hardware need fixing before you investigate any further

If you can hear clicking then I am afraid there is a serious problem with the hard drive.

The noise you can hear is usually known as "the click of death" when referring to hard drives.

Most common causes are that the drive unit was dropped or mishandled or just plain old age

There is no known cure unless the data is mission critical

In which case you could sent it to a data recovery specialist but this is usually VERY expensive.

If you are advised to place it in a freezer or anything similar then that is up to you but my advise would be to run from the person who may give this advise.
This is very old fashioned advice and meant for very old types of drives that used to get very hot.

If it a drive that was / is from an external enclosure then you could still use the enclosure
and just place a new hard drive in there

I devised these simple steps that tend to remedy quite a few issues with most portable / external hard drives (though not always)

A few things to check but assumes USB and Windows for other interfaces / operating systems similar steps may be adapted to suit.

1. Ensure it is connected directly to the computer to a USB 2.0 port not a USB 1.0 port as this can have effects on performance and reliability

2. Use only the cables that came with it NOT one that fits that may have been lying around or is longer. Not all USB cables are equal even though they should be)

3. Do not connect through an external USB HUB unless that hub is USB 2.0 AND has its own power supply.

4. Use ONLY the power supply that came with it if it has an external power supply Don’t use any other unless you know it has both the same voltage and current rating e.g. 12V 500mA anything rated below that would not work properly.

5. Always use the same port for connecting your devices. Some devices do not like being switched about. If switched they may want to install software / drivers again.

If you checked and fixed anything there and still have issues carry on reading.

Go to your control panel and then administrative tools, select Computer Management.
Now select Disk Management and expand the window.
Your drive should be listed here, if not then you need to check your computer hardware has not got any issues before proceeding.

If your drive is listed and says healthy then right click on it an select Properties, click Tools and then Error Checking, Check now, tick the two boxes and then Start.
This will attempt to fix most minor / common errors on the drive. It may also ask you to restart which is fine. Allow it to finish its work or you could corrupt the drive. If all went well you should be able to use it normally again.

If you drive was listed but did NOT say healthy then right click and select Format. Choose NTFS as the file system and do not tick any boxes you do NOT want quick format. Again start and let it do its thing. When it is done restart your computer and you should be good to go.
If you still have problems with the drive you might want to look at other areas.

A quick chck is to remove the drive and connect it direct to aPC with a suitable interface eg SATA or IDE.
If you can now see and use the drive it is the enclosure

Anything else and the drive may be dead

I devised these simple steps that tend to remedy quite a few issues with most portable / external hard drives (though not always)
A few things to check but assumes USB and Windows for other interfaces / operating systems similar steps may be adapted to suit.

1. Ensure it is connected directly to the computer to a USB 2.0 port not a USB 1.0 port as this can have effects on performance and reliability
2. Use only the cables that came with it NOT one that fits that may have been lying around or is longer. Not all USB cables are equal even though they should be)
3. Do not connect through an external USB HUB unless that hub is USB 2.0 AND has its own power supply.
4. Use ONLY the power supply that came with it if it has an external power supply
Don’t use any other unless you know it has both the same voltage and current rating e.g. 12V 500mA anything rated below that would not work properly.
5. Always use the same port for connecting your devices. Some devices do not like being switched about. If switched they may want to install software / drivers again.
If you checked and fixed anything there and still have issues carry on reading.
Go to your control panel and then administrative tools, select Computer Management.
Now select Disk Management and expand the window.
Your drive should be listed here, if not then you need to check your computer hardware has not got any issues before proceeding.
If your drive is listed and says healthy then right click on it an select Properties, click Tools and then Error Checking, Check now, tick the two boxes and then Start.
This will attempt to fix most minor / common errors on the drive. It may also ask you to restart which is fine. Allow it to finish its work or you could corrupt the drive. If all went well you should be able to use it normally again.
If you drive was listed but did NOT say healthy then right click and select Format. Choose NTFS as the file system and do not tick any boxes you do NOT want quick format. Again start and let it do its thing. When it is done restart your computer and you should be good to go.
If you still have problems with the drive you might want to look at other areas.

I have an I/O Magic 320GB drive. It's easily taken apart by gently removing the silver-colored aluminum sticky plate (by the power switch, USB, etc). Then you remove the two screws and remove the black plate. After that you can push out the entire drive harness and remove the screws and connectors to take the hard drive out. It's easily swapped for a different HDD, and the drive is easily placed as an IDE internal drive. If you hook it directly to your computer you can run diagnostics on it and perhaps data recovery software like "Recuva". Most external drives are pre-formatted as FAT32, single partitions but can be reformatted to any other format.

Good luck!

Did you load software ? You have a 64 bit Operating System (OS) and MANY companies don't make 64bit software. 95% of PCs are 32 bit. This is same problem other external drive makers are having, Vista 64 bit was sold as "typical" PC when it's for very powerful users. Many "drivers" that talk to the equipment must be written for 64bit software. Check the companie's site to see if it's VISTA 64 bit compatible. Bet it's not ! !

Hi there...

So the computer is not recognising it as a hard drive again? It sounds like it is getting power, but just not be recognized by the computer. Please confirm.

right click on my computer and go to property then go to hardware then device manager then uninstall all usb drivers then right click any then clik on scan for hardware changes then it automatic installe driver then restart computer then connect your harddisk to computer again then check .
Also check your usb cable is working fine.

There must be a hard drive installed into the enclosure. Then simply plug it in and it should get detected.

Please vote if this helps!
nLinked
Computer Support Services

It took me a bit to figure it out, so here it is.

1. Pry off the aluminum plate from the back side. Its held on with a rubber cement like glue. Use a thin blade to get under the plate and work it around the perimeter and it will lift off easily.

2. Remove the two screws that are now exposed. The back cover or "end plug" can be pulled off now.

3. Grab the front "plug"and pull and the drive tray will slide out. The Drive is attached with 4 screws to the tray. With the drive screws removed, the drive can be rocked out gently ..lifting the front of the drive up and out of the tray. Now you can get access to the power and data cables so that they can be unplugged. The drive is now free.

I have 2 of these drives and both have poor power connections at the drive enclosure back connector. One finally failed completly, so I removed the drive form the I/O Magic enclosure and directly connected it to an IDE port in my desktop. The hard drive worked perfectly,so I was able to get my data recovered. I plan to cut off the power cord connector and directly wire it to the enclosure, to eliminate the bad connector design.

I bet most all the trouble that people are having with this series external drive is caused by the bad power connection.

Hope this has helped.

Extreme temperatures, either very hot or very cold, can certainly cause damage to your External Hard Drive.  Based upon your description, it sounds like the hard drive enclosure has been damaged.  This would explain why device manager can not recognize it.  Your hard drive is plug-and-play with Windows XP, so no drivers are necessary.  Have you tried plugging it into another computer?
If your hard drive casing has malfunctioned, then retrieving your data is as simple as putting the hard drive inside another hard drive enclosure.  Hard drive enclosures are available at any local computer store, and also available on the I/O Magic website.  Make sure to get the right size enclosure.  Your hard drive has a 3.5" hard drive inside it, which is a standard desktop hard drive.

If you put your hard drive in another enclosure and it still isn't recognized by multiple computers, then the hard drive inside the casing has probably been damaged, and I would recommend contacting a data recovery specialist.
Have a nice day, 

I/O Magic Technical Support 

Is the blue light blinking? I had the same thing occur to my I/O Magic 250 GB USB drive a couple of days ago. I did an online chat with I/O Magic tech support and the guy said you can RMA (return) it if it's in warrantee, but otherwise too bad. Mine is out of warrantee. Since the enclosure contains an ordinary hard drive inside, just carefully peel off the little metal plate at the back of the unit, undo the two screws and slide out the drive. The are two plugs and four screws to free the drive. To get your data back once you've got the drive out, you've got three choices: buy a new enclosure ($20+), buy a toaster ($50) (it's like an enclusre, but you just pop a drive into the top, like bread into a toaster), or open up your computer and connect the drive directly as any other. Oh and don't buy another I/O Magic product again.

I had the same thing occur to my I/O Magic 250 GB USB drive a couple of days ago. I did an online chat with I/O Magic tech support and the guy said you can RMA (return) it if it's in warrantee, but otherwise too bad. Mine is out of warrantee. Since the enclosure contains an ordinary hard drive inside, just carefully peel off the little metal plate at the back of the unit, undo the two screws and slide out the drive. The are two plugs and four screws to free the drive. To get your data back once you've got the drive out, you've got three choices: buy a new enclosure ($20+), buy a toaster ($50) (it's like an enclusre, but you just pop a drive into the top, like bread into a toaster), or open up your computer and connect the drive directly as any other. Oh and don't buy another I/O Magic product again.

IOMagic has become notorious for some faulty power supplies in the past. If you've got it on your internal bus now and it's still not working, you're in trouble.

It all depends on the noise it's making. I've got an IOMagic 500G that's ticking away like crazy right now. The platter doesn't spin up though. Put your ear to it when you start your computer to see. If I give mine a quick twist I can get put a little inertia into the platters to help the motor overcome the standing friction and then it works until it powers down and stops spinning.

I've had others fail where the arm, with the read/write head on it, goes out to read the platter and the alignment is off, whether it's by impact or age or whatever, and you hear the arm go out, then there's a tick tick tick and then it parks itself and tries again. This is a really bad sign.

Some people have suggested freezing the drive. The cold changes the alignment for a while and you can maybe get it to read those first few sectors and then it's relatively fine for a while.

Some people have suggested buying an identical drive, exact same serial, to replace the external pcb incase the electronics have fried. This is not so likely but worth a shot, especially if you've got an old drive and a replacement is cheap.

There are a few other things but it gets more severe from here.

Advice: anything above that you do to it will void the waranty and will likely speed up decline of the drive.
If you get it to spin up and read, start imaging the drive to another drive right away and cross your fingers. It may never read again after that. Hope that you get it all before it kicks the bucket.
Make sure you image to another drive that is bigger. I've had an image of a 500G drive take over 3 days to complete only to fail because it didn't have enough room to close the control file. I was short a couple of kb on the destination drive. I was away when the fail happened and the drive powered itself down. I could never get it to read again. I was lucky enough to manually edit the control file and got almost all of my data back.

If your data is irreplaceable, and means the world to you, then your only real option is to take it to a data recovery company. They will remove the platters in a clean room and make an image to work from if they can't get it to work otherwise. This is of course very expensive. No one likes to hear it though. If you start messing with it first you may severely limit their chances for successful recovery.

If you simply can't afford it then try everything you can.

I've had drives not read for months and then I throw them in an enclosure just for kicks and the temp is just right or something, you never know, and they read long enough to get the info off.

Good luck.

"data doesn't exist unless it's in 3 different places", words to compute by.

There are a variety of things that can malfunction on your external hard drive:
1) The USB cable - Have you tried switching the USB cable?
2) The external hard drive casing
3)  The hard drive itself
If your hard drive casing has malfunctioned, then retrieving your data is as simple as putting the hard drive inside another hard drive enclosure.  Hard drive enclosures are available at any local computer store, and also available by going to our website at www.iomagic.com and clicking on Drive Enclosure.  Make sure to get the right size enclosure.  The I250HD35 has a 3.5" Hard Drive inside it, which is a standard desktop hard drive.

If you put your hard drive in another enclosure and it still won't show up on any of your computers, then your best bet at retrieving your data is to contact a data recovery specialist.   After you have retrieved your data, we will replace your unit if you are still within your warranty period. For specific warranty and replacement information, go to www.iomagic.com and click on Support.
Have a nice day,
I/O Magic Technical Support
 

Hello,
If the external hard drive is new, you have to follow these steps:
right-click on My Computer
click Manage
then choose Disk Management in side pane.
a disk initialization wizard should appear.
Get the new drive formatted now and it should be ready
when you open the My Computer.
Let me know if you have any problems.

Lolita

If you hook it back up in your machine, power down, and remove the CMOS battery on the board (looks like a watch battery) THIS WILL CLEAR THE PASSWORD in most cases. Once you put it back in after a few minutes, you may need to check the BIOS boot time and date, and other settings again to be sure nothing custom set has reverted to default settings.

If you are unable to boot your computer in Safe Mode without it locking up, another option to roll back changes made is to boot into the Last Known Good Configuration.

To boot into the Last Known Good Configuration, click on the F8 Key on on Start-Up and choose Last Known Good Configuration on the Windows Advanced Options Menu.

Have a nice day,

I/O Magic Technical Support

"what the error actually says is, you have either run out of space, or the backup file (.bkf) is too large for this disk. note: if the disk is formatted with FAT32, the maximum possible size for the backup file is limited to 4 gigs."

That error means that the FAT32 file system only allows 4GB files or smaller to be transfered. The chance that the backup file (.bkf) is larger than 4GB suggests that this file is causing your problems. You could try manually copying around that file (selecting all files from that folder except the large one) and see if that works.

Usually you will get many errors copying a drive directly as system files will be inaccessible and whatnot. Your best bet is to limit your copying to "C:\Program Files\" and "C:\Documents and Settings\", assuming you have Windows.

Have you looked both in Device Manager and in Disk Management?
Have you tried plugging your external hard drive into another computer?  
If it isn't recognized on multiple computers, then you are probably experiencing a hardware failure.  
There are a variety of things that can malfunction on your external hard drive:
1) The USB cable - Have you tried switching the USB cable? 
2) The external hard drive casing 
3)  The hard drive itself 

If your hard drive casing has malfunctioned, then retrieving your data is as simple as putting the hard drive inside another hard drive enclosure.  Hard drive enclosures are available at any local computer store, and also available on our website.  Make sure to get the right size enclosure.  The I250HD35 has a 3.5" Hard Drive inside it, which is a standard desktop hard drive.

If you put your hard drive in another enclosure and it still won't show up on any of your computers, then your best bet at retrieving your data is to contact a data recovery specialist.   After you have retrieved your data, we will replace your unit if you are still within the warranty period. For specific warranty and replacement information, go to www.iomagic.com and click on Support.  
Have a nice day, 
I/O Magic Technical Support