external 1 TB drive getting recognized sporadically

[Ravi K]

I have a 500gb and 1TB internal hdds. when I attach a 1tb external USB hdd, it does not show up consistently and goes offline intermittently. using 32 bit win 7.

 

[snowctrl]

First thing - try a different USB port - the ones on the back of your PC should be solid...?

 

[Ravi K]

tried that...no difference..

 

[trekzone]

Have you tried using different USB cables? Do these external drives have their own power adapters?

 

[Ravi K]

Tried with different cables. This particular iomega external hdd does not have a seperate power adapter. it has 2 usb connectors and I believe one of that is used for power and other for data. I can think of 2 possible issues - 1. not sufficient power supplied to the external hdd. 2 (and more likely) the OS is not able to recognize the >2TB consistently...I see lots of posts on hdd addressing limitations.

 

[snowctrl]

Time to try it on a different computer... one with a 64bit OS