Having External Hard Drive problems.

I took my external hard drive to a friends pc and took stuff off of it. I think put it back onto my pc but when I plugged in the wire to the back of my case "metal gear box" i accidently put the usb plugin in backwords. The bottom light kind of blinked. I then fixed it and put the usb in the right way. Then I plugged in the power cord in half way, didnt realize it, turned on the drive, and it started up and shut down real fast about 5 times. I shut it off fast and then put it in all the way and turned on my drive. Now my computer doesnt recognize it. Ive tried multiple usb drives. When I turn on the case the drive spins up no problem, no weird sounds or anything. I just can't access or even see the drive on my windows. Ive tried both Vista and XP. i tried it a different pc and it still doesnt work. I really dont think the drive is messed up, but probably just the case, anyone agree?

 

Have you tried formatting it? Or won't it even recognize it as a hard drive? Try using a new Y cable, maybe the usb connector got messed up or something.

 

Tried a new cable..from my printer. Wont even recognize it. The drive spins up and sounds fun, the case just isn't clicking like it usually does and acknowledging that its connected to a computer.

I'm really hoping its the enclosure or the usb port on the enclosure as I have about 150gb of data on the drive. I'm hoping that when I put the usb cord in backwards (I didnt jam it in there hard either, it slid it but didn't feel right), it messed up just the usb port. But with me luck, when the drive powered on and off rapidly for about 5 times the drive screwed up. Prolly gonna be a bad day.

 

My girlfriend has a computer that is sata enabled, however my hard drive didn't come with any cables or whatnot. So I don't know what I need to plug it in, the power? and the data? to the motherboard. All I have locally is a Radio Shack....so it might be more practical to just order a new enclosure.

 

arg,,,no one can reassure me my data is okay?

 

hate to do this but im really wondering what I should do, buy a new enclosure or just forget about my drive?,...bump.

 

Try buying a new case enclosure from a store that allows returns.

Put the drive into the new enclosure and try it. If it works, then your old enclosure somehow short circuited/fried when you didn't have the power cord plugged in all the way. If it still does not work then your drive probably is the problem.

Alternatively, pull the drive from the enclosure and plug it into a desktop system and see if you can access it. This may be a better first try solution since you don't seem to have any computer store nearby. And Radio Shack doesn't count.

 

Would a hard drive really die by just rapidly rebooting for a few times? Do most computers that are Sata enabled (my desktop isnt) come with the neccesary cables to connect a sata drive into them?

 

My guess is you blew the port in the computer or the enclosure. The two outside pins of a USB cable are power and ground. You basically sent +5 volts to ground in the enclosure and the computer. The drive and data should be OK. You'll need another computer to:
A. See if the enclosure works via USB
B. Mount the drive as a slave and check your data.

 

I tried the enclosure on a different computer to no avail, I also tried 2 different USB cords. I don't have access to a computer with Sata enabled motherboard. So I can't really check the drive.
The usb port that plugs into the enclosure is the one that looks sort of like a house... trapezoidal in shape.

 

Just buy an enclosure. Chances are you friend it. I dont really know how it is possible to plug a USB backwards...but anyway thats not the point. I doubt the drive itself is fried but it is possible though very unlikely so you wont have to worry too much about the data being lost.

 

I too am still wondering why it went in backwards so easily. I'll look into buying the same case however, as this was user error and up until this point the case has been awesome.