Troubleshooting Iomega External Hard drive not recognized

[Benjhonson]

I was having Iomega external hard drive from last six months. Last night I connected the Iomega hard drive into my DELL Inspiron 6400 laptop for sharing the data. The data transfer from the laptop was into the hard drive was successful. When I connected the hard drive into the USB port of the desktop, the hard drive was not recognized. When I checked the device manager the hard drive was shown but it was not displaying in the my computer dialog box. I need a solution so that I can troubleshoot this problem and transfer data from external hard drive to desktop successfully.

[Crespin]

When you are connecting the Iomega External Hard drive into the system and if it is not recognizing then there might be incompatibly problem. You can unplug the external drive and try plugging it into the system. You can also try to connect the external drive to another USB port on the system. If you having too many external devices connected to the same USB controller then the problem of drive not recognized will occur.

[BansiJ]

The external hard drive may not be recognized because of incompatible file system. If your external hard drive is in NTFS or FAT32 file system and you are connecting it on MAC operating system. When you have connected the external hard drive into the USB port of the MAC operating system it will not be recognized. If you want that external hard drive should be identified on MAC operating system then you need to format the external hard drive using HFS file system. After formatting the hard drive in HFS file system and connecting it on MAC operating system it will be recognized.

[switchblade327]

The external hard drive may fail from recognizing itself after when it is connected into the USB port of the system because of power failure. Some external hard drive use the power form the USB bus or from the power outlet. If the external hard drive is not using power from the USB bus then you need to connect it to power outlet so that I can gain power. If the power is not supplied then it may turn off and it will fail from identifying.

[Delaware]

The external hard drive may fail from identifying itself because of driver problem. If the mother board driver is not updated then it may fail to identify the external hard drive connected into it. The external hard drive may not be recognized because of data corruption. The data inside the hard drive may be corrupted because of either the power or USB cables are disconnected. You can fix the corrupted files by making use of Scandisk. Select My Computer/Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking. Now you need to click on the checkbox next to Windows attempt to fix errors and bad sectors. Click on ok button. Your hard drive corrupted file problem may be solved.

[Odalis]

If the external hard drive is not identified and it is making noise after connecting it into the USB port of the system then there is a possibility that it may be failing. Manufacturers provide utility through which you can fix the hard drive error. You need to browse the manufacturer website and download this utility. If the external hard drive is dead then in that case you may need to replace it.