[relentless]

I just purchased a Maxtor Basics External Portable Hard Drive (250GB) and plugged the two usb ports into my laptop (running on windows XP) and connected to the portable hard drive. It comes up in my computer as Local Disc E:, however when i double click on it or try to drag and drop files into it, it comes up with the message:

E:/ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

There are no instructions with it, so I don't know if i've missed out any steps/what I'm doing wrong. I can hear the fan spinning, and the green light is on, so it is working and when it was plugged in, an icon appeared saying the new found hardware was ready to use. But evidently, it's not...

[Advertisements]

Not familiar with this model, but if it's powered from a USB port (instead of from the mains) it may not be getting enough "juice".
With a desktop computer you could have simply bought an additional USB card with it's own hub and ports and enough power to run
the drive. However, with a laptop that's not possible. If this drive has no input for a mains adaptor you will have to exchange it for one that does, in which case you will get the mains adaptor supplied with it. I know that arrangement will not allow the drive to be used "on the road" but I can't see any other option if lack of power is the cause of your problem.

All the external drives I've used have all come with a mains adaptor, with USB only used for data transfer.

Edited by phillip22, 27 October 2008 - 05:10 AM.

[phillip22]

Not familiar with this model, but if it's powered from a USB port (instead of from the mains) it may not be getting enough "juice".
With a desktop computer you could have simply bought an additional USB card with it's own hub and ports and enough power to run
the drive. However, with a laptop that's not possible. If this drive has no input for a mains adaptor you will have to exchange it for one that does, in which case you will get the mains adaptor supplied with it. I know that arrangement will not allow the drive to be used "on the road" but I can't see any other option if lack of power is the cause of your problem.

All the external drives I've used have all come with a mains adaptor, with USB only used for data transfer.

Edited by phillip22, 27 October 2008 - 05:10 AM.

[relentless]

thanks, your help is very much apreciated.

Is there any way i can buy some sort of device that plugs into the mains and has a USB port, so i can just plug the 'power' cable of my hard drive into that and the information cable into my laptop?

[relentless]

managed to get it working - I right clicked it, and formatted it, and everything seems to be in working order now. Thanks for the help though