external hdd not working on laptop

so i got a 500gb external hdd from frys yesterday.
its the seagate freeagent desktop.

its plug and play
so i plug and no play

the laptop (vaio vgn-fe550g) recognizes it but it comes up in device manager as a yellow question mark. (i am using xp media edition)

so after trying over and over, (there is no driver for this drive) i test it on my desktop and it works instantly.

so my guess is that there isnt enough power supplied to spin the disks. but it came with a power adapter.

seagate cs didnt know anything.

they told me to update my chipset drivers.

can someone please help?

 

try going into the control panel, selecting Admin Tools, Computer management. Under Storage, select disk Managment.
You should see the drive there. You have to right click it. The term is escaping me at the moment, it may be initialize. Select that.

that might fix it

 

hey, thanks for the response.
ive tried that and there it is not coming up
=(

 

Do you have this drive plugged into the power adapter - and is the power adapeter plugged into the electric socket in the wall? Or are you trying to take USB power from your laptop?

 

I'm not sure how much of an affect this would have, but is your laptop on AC power or battery when you're doing this? I'd definately make sure you're on AC, especially if the external drive is powered by USB.

 

i am taking power from the wall socket to the external hdd to the laptop

 

i am running power on both the laptop and ext hdd

 

Well everything has a driver actually - but often they are pre-installed and available within the OS already e.g. in your Desktop, which is why it works fine there. So "Plug & Play" really means that Seagate is claiming to be sure that the drivers for its enclosure are already in the OS that they say it is working with.

So seems like your laptop does not have those drivers.

If Seagate wont give you drivers, return the item and move on.

BTW do you happen to have a streamlined install of Windows? Sometimes those streamlined versions cut back on size by eliminating some drivers.

 

So, you don't see the drive when you do what Crypto suggested? If not, then something else is wrong. Even if the drive wasn't formatted, it should appear there.

Try plugging the drive into a different USB port, or if possible, another computer.

 

What is your laptop's OS? What is your desktop's OS?

 

i went out and bought a 500gb WD external.
its having the same issue.
so i know its not the hdd.

im guessing its what skagen suggested.
but i dont know how to get the drivers that i need.

*i have updated my chipset drivers and still nothing.
*doesnt seem like WD has a driver either, at least i wasnt able to

 

i tried it on a powered usb hub. nadda

i tried it on a old laptop running xp pro. nadda
its still running usb 1.1

so maybe its a laptop usb issue.

anyone else running high capacity hdd on their laptops?

 

ok, i tried it on an old desktop 900mhz hp with usb 1.0.
guess what? it worked.

so i guess, after all this, my conclusion is, laptop usbs arent powerful enough to run high capacity ext hdds.

now, what i am wondering is, am i the first person to find this out?
cause i cant find anything on this issue

 

I don't think USB power is the issue, you have it powered by external power.
It really sounds like a driver issue. If you haven't already, dissconnect the drive, then uninstall the driver in the Device manager, then reconnect it again.

 

I had a similar problem with my laptop. USB harddisk worked on desktop but not on my T60. I fixed it like this:
Harddisk switched off connect USB to Desktop.
Turn harddisk on and desktop detects it and can use it.
Unplug USB but dont turn off hard disk.
Plug into T60 and it works.

If I turn the harddisk off and on inbetween T60 doesnt detect it...
I guess its not the best thing todo but since i mainly copy things from desktop to laptop i dont care so much.
I dont know if it can damage the harddisk since its not removed safely and so on. Try it at your own risk.
USB harddisks are strange to me. I have a 2.5 USB Disk which is powered by 2 USB ports and that works fine on desktop and laptop.