I plugged in an external hard drive into the USB ports and it does not show up in My Computer. I plugged an ipod into both ports and it showed up. The hard drive showed up once and then vanished. Help??

Leave it connected to your computer and try a restart.
If the folder is still showing as empty, power down the computer then disconnect the external drive.
Power on the computer and connect the external hard drive to a different usb port.
I had this exact problem with a 1000 Gb external drive that was full of movies and music. I thought it had all been lost .. After 2-3 days and repeated attempts of restarts and power-downs/different usb ports it suddenly was recognised again and has worked perfectly since

Try plugging the hard drive to a different usb port, if that doesnt work its possible that you may need to update the usb drivers.

Try to plug the external hard drive to a different port. if its not working try to use other usb device like ipod, or thumb drive and if the other usb device works it means the problem is the external hard drive it self. If the problem still the same the problem is the usb ports probably the motherbaord

I would try to plug it into a different USB port on the computer or try and see if it works on another computer. It could be that the computers USB port is no longer working or that the drive has failed.

above the control panel there is a computer word
click on that and it shows the external hard drive double click on the hard drive icon and that will open up all of the files and folders on the hard drive

Hi,
does it show up on another laptop or computer?
Some of the larger hard drives need access to 2 separate USB ports to allow enough current for the drive to spin up and be accessed. Each USB port on your computer can only provide half an amp of current.
If the external drive has a lead with 2 USB plugs make sure you have both plugged in at the host computer.
The larger drives eg 1TB in a large enclosure usually have a dedicated power supply which you need to use. The smaller pocket size drives (containing laptop hard drives usually no larger than 500Gb) typically only make use of a USB lead for data and power access (whether it be a single or double headed USB lead)
Feel free to ask more questions.
Regards,
Steve
PS please vote for my answer, or add a testimonial if I have helped out.

Try using another USB cable or different port on your PC. It also may be that it needs external power, Check to see if its plugged in to the wall, if it is, it may be that you need a new power supply.

It sounds like your hard drive is dead. If you have tried it on a different computer and it did the same thing then your drive isn't booting up and is probably bad.

Plug in the ipod,double click on my computer and see if it shows as a drive.If so and you want this turned off,you can do it by opening itunes and going into the settings and disable hard drive mode.

hi there

have you tried looking at the device manager?
you can also try transfering it to different usb ports.

hope this helps