WD Combo Drive Recognition Problems

[NoahFrenzy]

I picked up one of the deals from Buy.com this past December when they were selling a WD 120gig SE External USB2/Firewire drive for 150 dollars after rebate. The drive has been working flawlessly, but after not using it for a few weeks, I tried plugging it in yesterday. Nothing. No noise to indicate that XP had noticed the drive, no flashing of the drive's activity light.

I started troubleshooting, checking to make sure USB was still functioning correctly on my system; I uninstalled the entire USB part of the system and let XP redisover everything. Everything was finel; other mass storage devices were even recognized without problem on the same USB port and on different ports. I also noticed that if I powered the drive down and brought it back up a few times, XP would randomly decide to find it.

By this time, I was starting to think that it was just my computer, so I took the drive over to my brother's computer (a win98 box) and tried it there. It recognized it a few times, but then started to do the same thing, not recognizing that the drive was attached. Once again, powering the drive down a few times would eventually lead to a connection. I've already emailed WD Tech, but haven't received a response yet.

Hm. Also, the drive appears to be working fine again today. I'm rather confused. Anyone have an idea what's going on?

 

[NoahFrenzy]

*bump*

 

[SUOrangeman]

Depending on the state of the warranty (and if you care about voiding the warranty), it may be worth getting rid of the outer casing and

1) Use it as an internal IDE drive ... OR ...
2) Get another external case and seat the drive there

-SUO