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Computer not recognizing external hard drive on esata cable
I packed up my computer and moved it. When I plugged everything back in, everything works fine except my external hard drive with an esata cable. I have another hard drive that I use as a backup that’s being recognized by my computer on a USB 3.0 connection. The hard drive on an esata cable is not showing up under disc management or the device manager, and I’ve tried restarting my computer a few times. I’m running Windows 7. It was working fine yesterday before I moved it.
The only change I’ve made to my computer is upgrading my nvidia Geforce GTS 450 because I was having crashes on flash videos when I maximized the video. I checked the esata cable inside my computer case, and it’s still connected to the port. What else could it be?
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7 Replies
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Also, I checked the USB port on the enclosure, which works when connected to my computer, so at least I know the hard drive isn’t damaged.
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My Computer > Manage > Storage > Disk Management
wait for screen to populate with disks
Action > Rescan disks
if your drive still does not appear, you may have a damaged e-SATA cable/connection, or your e-SATA port is possibly damaged, or your power supply could be under powered.
One thing you need to consider is the age of your power supply, which I have just experienced. I was regularly losing the integrity of my mirrored disk, and my system was having various start up issues. Furthermore, every time I plugged in a USB HDD drive or flash drive, my system would imminently crash from anywhere after 30 seconds to 2 hours.
It turns out power supplies lose efficiency by around 10% per year. If you have just added a new graphics card with a higher power draw, you have probably just hit the upper limit of your power supply.
With 5 HDD’s and 3 DVD burners in my system plus an i7 970 CPU with 12 GB RAM, my old 750W could no longer handle all of my devices. I am now using a 1050W power supply.
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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Well, I am powering everything from one power outlet for my computer using a power strip-monitor, speakers, CPU, and two hard drives. I haven’t added any other new hardware, though.
And since the hard drive works with the USB cable, I just ordered two new esata cables in case my cable is bad.
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I am talking about the power supply internal to the PC. It is recommended you use a 600 watt or better power supply with this card. Most generic systems ship with a 450 watt supply. If not, other peripherals could suffer problems like you have described. If the replacement cable does not do the trick, I would look at the power supply unit or a blown e-SATA port.
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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I believe I have a 700w power supply.
Anyways, it works with a USB cable, so I’m waiting until my esata cables get delivered to see if the problem is my esata cable. I’m hoping it got damaged in the move.
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Got it working. I got my new esata cables and plugged them in and it works fine. Although, it appears that I merely didn’t push the cable in hard enough before. So I guess I have three working esata cables now. That’s more than I even know what to do with! Kid in a candy store.
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Ah, sometimes we overlook the simplest of solutions. Reminds of a job interview I went for 20 years ago in IT to troubleshoot a printer problem. The only response I did not give was to check the darn thing was switched on to begin with! LOL! btw, I still got the job based on my other responses… . 🙂
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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