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kosimov

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Everything posted by kosimov

  1. kosimov

    USB Device Not Recognized (External Hard Drive)

    Since there are so many problems apparently with the WD cable/HD arrangements, I thought I would throw in my $0.02 worth. Before I went to college for my engineering degree, I worked repairing audio equipment, as well as lots of other types of equipment. After the degree and a few disappointing jobs, I formed my own company built products for computers, eventually "specializing" in laptops. Some of the products also used cables, though USB came along late in the history of my company. However, we did have similar problems with cables AFTER they had either been used for a long time, or, somehow bent or twisted or otherwise "stressed". We found that even new cables could be rendered defective by even slight "stretching" caused by normal use. One of the problems was that the cables were not always soldered to the connectors. Whenever possible, the cable manufacturers crimped connections to connector pins and shells, which saved them a lot of money and, consequently, allowed us to buy cords which did not cost more than the products (such as the current farcical "Monster" cables do). Unfortunately, the metals used in the connectors and the wires in the cables were not always compatible, and we had regular problems with the cables, very much like those reported here. After switching to high quality connectors and building some of the cables ourselves, the problems more or less went away for a while. However, they eventually returned, and we discovered that the stranded wires used in the cables, which is a number of very thin solid wires twisted together, to allow the cables to flex, the stranded wires were literally wearing out. As the thin wires would break one by one, the resistance of the cables would go up, until finally the cables were either open (due to all the wires breaking) or intermittant (as the ends of the wires touched and pulled apart) or had high impedance as the signal and power currents were carried by smaller and smaller amounts of wire. I would not be surprised if the problems reported here are due to a similar effect on the cables used with the USB drives. In some cases, the one amp of current required to START the drive, when carried by a cable which has increased its resistance to just one ohm or more, will cause the loss of one volt or more of voltage delivered to the drive, which is enough of a loss to prevent the drive from starting up. As the resistance increases in the cables, the drive may not work at all, as the logic circuits inside are sensitive to power supply voltage also. Since virtually all manufacturers, such as WD, purchase cable assemblies from companies which specialize in making them in large quantities, I'd suspect that WD either got a warehouse full of low quality cables, or, that their drives require too much power when starting up. I wonder if a large value capacitor connected across the power and ground connections of the USB port(s) would supply enough "surge" power to start the drives up, even though the USB specification for USB 2.0 says that a device may draw no more than 500 mA from the USB connector, since the capacitor would charge up fairly quickly, probably before the drive tried to power up, and would supply a temporary surge of power for a fraction of a second during drive startup, then simply sit idle during ongoing operation of the drive, etc. Perhaps that is too technical but that is what I intend to try if I ever have this problem. I probably have seen the problem without realizing it, as I have had trouble with my "generic" USB drives from time to time.... Perhaps this will help work out what is causing this problem. If it is too "techie", just ignore it. regards, Larry
  2. kosimov

    USB Devices Not Recognized!

    Your problem is that missing file. You will need to find a way to repair that problem before your drive will work on usb. I made the same mistake a couple of years ago. I finally opened the USB case, removed the drive, and plugged it into my computer. I was then able to repair the problem, though I regret I don't remember what software I used to do so, other than it was free software I downloaded from the internet. Try using google to search for help on the internet. In fact, Seagate used to furnish software to check and repair some hard drive problems, but of course, you will have to be able to use the drive itself before you can try anything. Windows has to be able to recognize the drive before you can do anything with it, which is why you are having problems. Windows reads the drive information and, not finding what it is expecting, it concludes that the USB is not working, as it does not contain enough "intelligence" to decide whether it is the USB circuits or the device plugged into the USB, etc. Even though you are getting an error message indicating the USB is failing, it is actually your drive not being set up correctly due to that missing file. I would try downloading one of the free or free trial software packages for system repair and measurement to see if it will allow you to access the drive somehow. One that comes to mind is "Sandra"; I don't recall just where it is, though. You will have to google for that also. There are other programs which may be able to test the USB, find it isn't working for that drive, and yet, still try to use the port, etc. That is the best I can think of right now.... Of course, you should plug something else into that USB port to make sure it is working and is not the problem. If it fails with another known good device plugged into it, then your drive is not the total problem; you will have to get the USB port fixed. The "computer engineer" was correct in saying they would need to open the case, though, unless you happen to find some software that is "smart" enough to use the USB port in a detailed manner to troubleshoot the drive. Good luck.
  3. kosimov

    Trouble replacing display on Toshiba Satellite lap

    I "googled" the model number of your laptop and got tons of information which should help you. For example, there is this link: http://www.laptopka.com/category/toshiba-satellite-m35/ which helps with assembly of the case, etc. There are many others which show up in the google search; just put your model number in google exactly as you typed it here and you will find plenty of help; I even saw the exact problem you are having in one of them! So, now, if you can just figure out how to sift the tons of information from google into a compact set of information you can actually USE... Larry
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