Top 10 SimpleTech 250GB USB2.0 7200 RPM External 250 GB IDE Hard Drive Questions & Answers

I bought the Simpletech Signature Mini 250GB last week and had these same issues. I wrote to the company's tech support and the solutions works. It boils down to you having to create a drive letter & partition for this. It took a little time to format, but it's all good now. I agree we shouldn't have such a headache for such a simple piece of hardware, though. I will cut/paste the info below. Once it was done, I was able to go to My Computer and see it listed as Drive H (which was what I selected).


PROBLEM: I have followed directions re: plugging device in, still cannot see device in MY COMPUTER. I have also tried plugging both USB's into computer to no avail. Even tried using it on my laptop, still not showing. My desktop is XP & loaptop is Vista. When I go to remove the dirve, it DOES show as Fujitsu, but I cannot acces the drive or locate it elsewhere. I really want to like this, but will have to return it if this issue is not resolvable.

SOLUTION: You might need to initialize the drive.

Right click on “My Computer” or “Computer” on Vista.
Select “Manage”
On the next screen select “Disk Management”
In the lower middle section you should be able to find your drive.
It will show up as Disk 1 or Disk 2….depending on how many drives you have in your computer.
If you click on the area that says Disk # you should get and option to “initialize drive”.
Also to the right it should show the allocation information for the drive. If it says “unallocated” then the drive needs to be partitioned.
Right click on the white box next to the drive listing.
Select the option “New Partition”
This will bring up the partition wizard and you will need to step through this process.
Select a primary partition.
On the next screen accept the maximum size it will provide.
On the next screen you assign a drive letter.
On the next screen you will do the format and accept the default settings.
The formatting will start and will be busy until it is complete.
You can monitor this from the disk management window.

Regards,

SimpleTech Technical Support

Hope it helps!

Open your Simpletech by removing two screws from the back --> you need to remove the label in the back, and pull the I/O card up towards you. The I/O card comes off easily.You need to buy a BYTECC USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA ADAPTER Kit ( you can buy this adapter on line, It ranges from $16 to over $30). Now connect the USB port from the adapter kit to your USB port, and plug in the Adapter kit to a 115 volt power outlet. If the hard drive is not shot, that is, you feel it spinning, you should be able to see the drive, and copy the data from your SimplechTecj drive to your PC.
Aram Dodakain
e-mail to [email protected]

I had a similar problem with a SimpleTech 250g Pininfarina USB drive.
I went through the drivers, the power supply, the USB cables, and the various
computers, USB cards and Operating systems.
Finally I opened the case and found the disk drive was mounted too far
forward, causing the IDE connector to barely touch. I loosened the mount screws,
slid the drive back towards the connector, tightened everything down and it works.

I've had this problem before.

I tried a different cord and it started working again. Additionally i've had this work for me (see below)

Try This:

1. Unplug all USB devices
2. Turn off Ext Hard drive
3. Shut down computer
4. Power on ext hard drive (then wait like 1 min)
5. Turn on computer
6. Wait for windows to finish loading
7. Plug in the USB cord from the ext hard drive to your computer (may take up to a minute for computer to recognize it)
8. If it doesn't recognize it then keep trying it in different USB ports

the file you need is called takeownership you have to google for it as it's in one of the forums the file is in the form of a zip file and when extracted you select the takeownership and install a little code into your reg and when you select a folder right mouse button on it and select takeownership this willl get rid of access denied garbage and give you full control over the folder and you do the same on any hard drive.

hope this will solve problems of access denied

I have that problem similiar to yours. My simple tech stopped working for like two years so i decided to open up my simple tech and removed my HD away from the old enclosure so I can try building my own external hard drive for the first time. I bought another new 3.5 enclosure, IDE/ATA for the old HD. I put it in the new enclosure and it worked!

It's the only solution you can have. No need to retrieve data or re-format your HD. You can leave it the way you like...if you wanna reformat it...up to you.

Although I have seen it fail often, in your case it is worthwhile to try the 'Add hardware' wizard in the Control Panel. If you have an installation disk of any kind, have it at hand. Let the system look for the drive (plugged in of course) and if it finds it and has no drivers for it, it will ask for the installation disk but you may have to tell Win where to look for it by drive letter. If you don't have an installation disk, you will have to go through the drivers list offered to see if SimpleTech is listed.
SimpleTech still has an active website so I would check there first:
SimpleTech support page
If you have no luck you find no driver, there are several websites that have a huge array of drivers for current and obsolete hardware.
Good luck- 

Your drive is not getting enough power. try a different usb cable and a different usb port on the computer

Easy solve man here is the location
http://www.simpletech.com/support/support_downloads.php
THis is there support page

Hi, you have this question in the wrong park of the site. But I did a quick google search and believe I may have found an answer for you. I'll copy and past what I found for you here. If this doesn't solve the issue you should probably repost this question

"In the spot where the soap dispenses, there is a very small plug which controls the flow which you need to gently pull out and release (not break off) in order to break the vacuum seal. This information is not included in the regular instructions, but rather is written on a small 2-inch square piece of paper in the box. I was getting very frustrated because I had "primed" the soap dispenser at least 30 times and nothing had come out. I noticed the small plug, and while looking through the box again found the small piece of paper with the additional instruction. After that, it worked great! I use a generic version of Soft Soap, and we find the lowest setting dispenses more than enough soap."