I've just developed a problem with my Seagate Freeagent Pro 500GB external hard drive which up till now had been working really well for years.
I'd just bought another 1TB drive so I could copy the 500GB drive to it but when I plugged them both into my laptop only the 1TB drive was detected. The 500GB's drive's light came on but it never showed up on my laptop. It didn't make any weird noises (clunking etc), just the normal whirr sound of the drive.
I disconnected the 500GB drive and reconnected it and also tried the cable in diiferent USB ports in my laptop but it still didn't show up in Computer. I also did a restart of my laptop. Nothing worked. But my 1TB drive showed up every time.
I thought the USB cable might not be connected properly so I took the cable out of the 500GB drive & pushed it back in but the USB port came loose and fell back into the drive. I can no longer use the USB port but now I've discovered that the drive also has an external eSATA port. I am wondering if I can use that to get the data off.
I've never used eSATA before and don't know much about it. I don't have an external eSATA port on my laptop (Acer Aspire 4752) nor an eSATA cable.
I'm wondering if it might not just be the broken USB port which is the problem because the drive did fail to show up on my laptop even before the USB port broke.
I'm not a very technical person but I hope someone can give me some advice on what to do because I don't want to lose years of family photos, videos, music etc. Thanks in advance.
I'd just bought another 1TB drive so I could copy the 500GB drive to it but when I plugged them both into my laptop only the 1TB drive was detected. The 500GB's drive's light came on but it never showed up on my laptop. It didn't make any weird noises (clunking etc), just the normal whirr sound of the drive.
I disconnected the 500GB drive and reconnected it and also tried the cable in diiferent USB ports in my laptop but it still didn't show up in Computer. I also did a restart of my laptop. Nothing worked. But my 1TB drive showed up every time.
I thought the USB cable might not be connected properly so I took the cable out of the 500GB drive & pushed it back in but the USB port came loose and fell back into the drive. I can no longer use the USB port but now I've discovered that the drive also has an external eSATA port. I am wondering if I can use that to get the data off.
I've never used eSATA before and don't know much about it. I don't have an external eSATA port on my laptop (Acer Aspire 4752) nor an eSATA cable.
I'm wondering if it might not just be the broken USB port which is the problem because the drive did fail to show up on my laptop even before the USB port broke.
I'm not a very technical person but I hope someone can give me some advice on what to do because I don't want to lose years of family photos, videos, music etc. Thanks in advance.