Do you have an older version of a SimpleTech external hard drive? It has recently stopped working and now you are perplexed. Actually, it turns on and you can hear it connect to your computer. However, you cannot use it to back up your files, nor can you access anything that is on it through Microsoft Windows operating system windows explorer.
Is it dead, you ask? Or can it be revived? You set up an automatic back up through your Norton backup software.
Every time you try to run a back up, a screen says it is “starting” for fifteen to thirty minutes, then tells you it cannot find a disk. Meanwhile, both red and blue lights are lit on your Simpletech external hard drive. You have not done anything other than to try to run another back up and now trying to contacting Simpletech support.
If you have not already, you can try to hook up your Simpletech external hard drive to a different universal serial bus port on your computer. In Microsoft Windows operating system, you can check if your external hard drive shows in “Disk Management”. In order to get into disk management, you will want to right click “My Computer” and then choose “Manage”.
Microsoft Windows operating system disk management is on the left side under “Storage”. On the bottom half of that screen you will see listings similar to disk zero. An external hard drive would show as a disk other than zero.
Generally, disk one or two, but that can change depending on what else is installed on your computer system. If your drive is listed and has a drive letter assigned, you can minimize this window and check in “My Computer” for that hard drive letter. If it is listed, that is your Simpletech external hard drive.
If a letter is not listed or is assigned to another device drive, for example a network drive, you will need to manually set a drive letter. You will want to open disk management back up and then right click on the capacity of your Simpletech external hard drive. You will want to choose “Change Drive Letter and Path”.
You can then choose “Change” and then select an available letter from a drop down list box. Once you assign a drive letter to your Simpletech external hard drive, then a drive should be listed in “My Computer” with a letter you have selected. If that drive is listed as “Unknown” or “Unallocated” then that drive is not properly formatted for use with this computer.
If your external hard drive was used with an Apple Macintosh computer or another non Microsoft Windows computer device it may be using an incompatible format. This can be changed, but that process will erase all data on that hard drive. If a drive shows “Unknown”, you can right click on yhe word “Unknown” and choose “Initialize”.
You will want to click through by accepting some defaults. Your Simpletech external hard drive should now be labeled “Unallocated”. If that external hard drive is listed as “Unallocated”, you can right click on the word “Unallocated” and now choose “New Simple Volume”.
You can keep clicking next, and accepting any default settings, until you get to a finish option. By clicking finish a format process will begin. A format will generally take around ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the size of your Simpletech external hard drive.
When that format is complete your external hard drive will be listed under “My Computer” and labeled “New Volume”. You can right click on that drive and choose rename if you would like a different label.