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Windows doesn't see portable drive

The amount of information that a user stores on his computer increases every year. Therefore, many are faced with the problem when there is practically no free space left on the computer. We upload photos and videos from a digital camera to it, download a new movie that we plan to watch in the future, and so on. As a result, the hard drive is overloaded and the computer begins to freeze.

Buying an external hard drive will help solve this problem. You can upload all the necessary information onto it, access to which will be no different from accessing information on the hard drive of a computer. In addition, you can connect an external hard drive to a computer, laptop or TV via a USB connector.

Now let's figure out how to properly connect an external hard drive via USB to the selected device.

At connecting an external hard drive to a computer or laptop You need to connect the cable on one side, using a USB or mini-USB plug, to the disk, and connect the other end of the cable, with a USB plug, to the computer into a USB port. Then wait for the computer to detect the new device.

If you connected an external hard drive, but it does not work, this is typical for hard drives with a capacity of more than 2 terabytes, consider another connection method. The reason in this case may be a normal lack of power for the hard drive. The fact is that it is powered from a computer USB port, which does not always provide the 5 volts necessary for the disk to operate. In this case, you will need to use a special USB cable with splitter or Y-cable.

Connect the Mini/Micro-USB plug to the hard drive, and at the other end of the cable, connect the two plugs to the USB ports on the computer. The main USB plug transmits data; the other USB plug is used to supply additional power.

Use the Y-cable that came with the hard drive to connect. If this was not the case, then you will have to buy it in addition. Sometimes an additional cable is included with the drive, which can also provide the necessary power.

There are several more reasons Why is my external hard drive not working?:

1. There is not enough power through the USB port. This can also happen if you connect the drive to the USB ports located in the front of the system unit. Then just connect it to the ports on the back of the system unit, directly to the motherboard.

2. The hard drive may be faulty - take it for diagnostics.

3. Faulty USB port - connect to another port.

4. Problem with the cable - you need to purchase a new one.

If you store a lot of movies, videos or photos on your hard drive, you can ensure their comfortable viewing using connecting an external hard drive to the TV. There are no difficulties in this. The main thing is that the TV has a free USB port, or better yet two ports.

If the TV has more than one USB port, but several, and one of them is labeled HDD IN, plug the main plug for the external hard drive into it. Insert the plug for supplying additional power into the port nearby.

Turn on the TV, press the Source or Input button on the remote control and look for the partition with the hard drive.

I will end here. I think now you understand how to connect external hard drive via USB to a computer, laptop or TV.

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Webmaster. Higher education with a degree in Information Security. Author of most articles and computer literacy lessons

    Related Posts

    Discussion: 2 comments

    P.S. The problem of connecting an external HDD (drive, hard drive, hard drive) to the TV is solved!!
    I must correct my previous statement about replacing MBR with GPT or vice versa - the problem is deeper.
    The GPT tabular standard is required for the TV to read drives larger than 2.2 TV (the limit for MBR), while the computer reads it without restrictions. And increases the life of the HDD.
    The Seagate STEL8000200 (8 TB) HDD drive that works for me, with a PANASONIC TX-49DXR600 TV, has the following parameters: GPT, NTFS, a cluster of 8 sectors of 512 bytes each, has an MSR (Microsoft System Reserved) partition (logical disk) of 128 MB in size .
    The MSR section on the drive is of no importance, and is most likely used for equalization (1024 KB offset) and as a buffer memory for the controller. It is created by the DiskPart application found in Windows.
    The parameters mean that this drive has the old magnetic track layout - 512 bytes (sector size - physically not changeable), and most modern drives (since 2010) are manufactured in the new Advanced Format - a new sector layout format, 4096 bytes (4 KB) ).
    Thus, we can state that the problem with most drives is unreadability of a sector size of 512 or 4096 bytes.
    Unfortunately, this technical parameter is not specified by manufacturers. You can define it like this: on your computer, point the cursor over your external HDD, right-click and select “format” - in the formatting parameters, when selecting the cluster size, the minimum is indicated, this will be the sector size (512 or 4096 bytes).
    Therefore, ask the seller to indicate the HDD sector size.
    In my case, you can use disks with 4096 byte sectors (I have two of them) formatted with the FAT32 file system, which limits the file size to 4 GB. For low-resolution films, it will do. To reduce the size of a video file, I recommend the free program Avidemux 2.6, which allows you to reduce the size and quality of the “stream” and divide the file into parts, in addition, copy video from one container to another (for example, from .avi to .mkv) without losing quality and convert one video or audio codec to another, since not all containers and codecs are read by TVs (Software problem).
    The problem that the TV reads the NTFS file system with a sector layout of 512 bytes, and does not read NTFS with 4096 bytes, lies in the inferiority of the USB controller driver installed in the TV software.
    If both markup is not readable, format it to the FAT32 file system, it is supported by flash drives. Sometimes the driver does not support GPT, then replace it with MBR.
    To format to the FAT32 file system, you need to use the Paragon Hard Disk Manager or similar program. There are limitations to FAT32 using Windows.
    Request driver updates from the TV manufacturer (for the USB controller) with support for HDD format NTFS with sector markings of 512 and 4096 bytes.

    Answer

    The capacity of the hard drive cannot in any way affect the lack of power, find a more plausible explanation. The influence of the volume of a hard drive can only be felt when several plates are used to create volume inside the disk, which also need to be untwisted. And to spin it up you need power with a current of more than 500 mA. There is a 2.5" IDE drive with a capacity of 40GB, which has an indication on the cover that the current consumption is 0.7A. Naturally, connecting it to one USB 2.0 port is useless. But 0.7A may not be the starting current, so 2 USB screws may not be enough.

    Answer

It's been a year since I abandoned the DVD drive, and netbook trends indicate that I made the right decision. But I was faced with the question of how to install an operating system without a DVD. The flash drive died out of place, and when I went to the store to buy a new one, I accidentally caught my eye on the Seagate Expansion external drives, the 250Gb version of which cost literally 500 rubles more than the 8Gb flash drive (2323 rubles). And the size and all of which did not bother the jacket pocket much.

Dimensions:141 x 18 x 80 mm
Weight:0.16kg

But as it turned out, installing Windows 7 from a USB HDD does not work on the same principle as with USB FLASH. Having figured it out and checked its functionality, I’m sharing the information with you.
Works for both Desktop PCs, laptops and Netbooks.
  • HDD preparation
  • Cutting and preparing HDD partitions;
  • Copying Windows 7

HDD preparation

You can make a boot disk, install Windows 7, and then erase it and continue to use the HDD for your needs. Or make it much more convenient:
If you don’t mind 4 gigabytes of space on the External HDD, then the Disk can be cut into two parts, in our case I did just that, giving one part for the Windows 7 distribution kit, which will always be at hand.

Cutting and preparing HDD partitions

1. Go to:
Control Panel - Administration - Computer Management (Disk Management)
Find Disk 1 (if you have several hard drives in your system, find the one that is equal to the size of your External HDD)

2. Select our External HDD drive:
- Right click with the mouse - Delete volume;
- Right click - Create simple volume;
In the window that appears, select the volume size of 4300 Megabytes (Under the Distribution section), and click next,

In the next dialog, if necessary, select the drive letter and click next. In the new dialog, you need to format our new partition (FAT 32), click next and you're done.

After this, you need to make the created section active, for this:
- right click on a section - make the section active.
Now our External HDD looks like this:

Using the same principle, we format the second partition on the disk, preferably in NTFS. but don't make it active.

Copying Windows 7

Copying a Windows distribution onto a boot disk has never been easier.

If you have a DVD:
- Simply open your installation DVD, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

If you have an ISO image:
- Simply open your installation ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

That's it, your External HDD is ready to act as a Bootable media, just reboot, and in the BIOS Set it as Primary Boot Device. a specific External HDD, or just a USB HDD, depending on the BIOS type. Save the changes and proceed to installing your Windows 7.

UPD: For cmd lovers(Thank you )
diskpart

List disk
select disk no.
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick

Many modern people have already bought themselves an external hard drive! And for those who are planning to do this, please read my article,
Thanks to this article, it will be easier for you to navigate choosing a hard drive!

What is an external hard drive?


It is, for the most part, a portable device designed for recording and storing data. The name contains the word disk, but inside may
be not only a hard drive, but also a solid state drive (SSD).

  • When the first hard drives were created, IBM had a rule: everything
  • models had to fit through a standard 75 cm doorway.
  • Recording density on hard drives over 50 years (from 1961 to 2011)
  • increased 60 million times.

Criterias of choice

Probably every buyer, in one way or another, fixes his gaze on the selection criteria (characteristics) before purchasing.

Capacity (storage volume)

The most basic characteristic when choosing a hard drive.
Many people are interested in how much information can fit on a particular disk.
For example, you chose a 1 TB disk, on average it will contain about 40-50 films, each 20 GB in size (BD quality films).
Based on this, for a collection of ~90 films of this quality, you need a hard drive of at least 2 TB. And this is without taking into account the fact that the disk capacity in reality will not be 2 TB (2000 GB), but about 1862 GB.

1. External hard drives with a capacity of 240 -250 GB (SSD)


These drives are intended for people who value speed and mobility, but do not need to store large amounts of information.
Currently, hard drives of this size are not available due to their small capacity. But hard drives are being replaced by solid state drives (SSDs).
The speed characteristics can be several times higher than conventional hard drives; in addition, the advantages of SSDs include lighter weight, quieter operation, and also less damage from impacts and shocks due to the absence of mechanical parts of the drive.

2. External hard drives with a capacity of 500 GB.


These external hard drives are positioned as entry-level hard drives, i.e. those who want to have a hard drive and do not know which one to choose can choose from this category. These discs won't break the bank and will be just right for the average user. Oddly enough, there are no big differences from the segment of disks over 500GB, except for the price range.

3. External hard drives with a capacity of 1 - 1.5 TB.


The main difference is the capacity and the corresponding price category. Otherwise, the functionality is standard at the entry level.
Such discs can be safely purchased by those who want not only to move information, but also to store part of their information (small collections of films).
4. External hard drives with a capacity of 2 TB.


In this category, some features begin to appear: weight and thickness increase. As the volume of the disk increases, both the price and overall parameters increase with it. It is worth noting that many modern manufacturers have learned to cope with such shortcomings, thereby reducing the size and weight of drives, making them more competitive among other disk sizes.
Discs in this category can be purchased by those who want to store in their pocket a collection of Blu-ray films in the amount of up to 90 pieces, each with a capacity of 20 GB.

5. External hard drives with a capacity of 3 - 4 TB.


For such drives, the form factor is most often 3.5", which in turn is large in size and weight. Accordingly, such drives have increased power supply and require an additional power source, which is provided by an external power adapter.
But these discs are intended for those who are going to store quite large amounts of information at home, be it Blu-ray films up to 200 pieces, or any other information of this size.

6. External hard drives with a capacity of 5 - 6 TB.
Disks of this size can no longer operate without an additional power source; therefore, they have an external power adapter. Some may have multiple drives installed, which can significantly affect both size and weight. Also, due to this volume, the disks are large in size, and their weight ranges from ~1 kg to 2 kg or more.
Disks in this category are worth purchasing for those who decide to store large amounts of information at home, but do not want to purchase network storage. Because external hard drives are more portable and there is no replacement for them if you need to quickly transfer information from point A to B. Despite the fact that the volume of information is quite large.


Form factor

There are two types of disks based on form factor.
1. Drives with a 2.5" form factor 


These disks can be called portable, since this form factor provides for a smaller disk size, as well as less weight. Accordingly, such drives should be recommended for purchase by those who do not want to carry “extra pounds” with them, but at the same time use all the functions of an external hard drive.

2. Drives with a 3.5" form factor 


Accordingly, disks of this form factor are larger in size and weight. Which does not give the right to call them portable. But nevertheless, disks of this form factor can be used at home for large collections or other purposes involving large amounts of information.
Do you need an external hard drive with large capacity? And, at the same time, you don’t need to carry the disc frequently? Then feel free to choose a disc from this category.


Wi-Fi wireless interface support

Wi-Fi enabled drives. 


The main advantage of such drives is their mobility in terms of use via a wireless interface. In other words, information from such disks can be obtained using Wi-Fi, i.e. you don't need any wires. For example, your smartphone connects to the network, where an interface opens in a browser or in a special application with which you can view content directly, bypassing wires. In addition, you can connect not one device to such drives, but several.
Among the minuses, we can note the 3.5" form factor, respectively large size and weight, as well as the fact that for Wi-Fi to work, you will need to charge your hard drive, since such drives have a built-in battery necessary for Wi-Fi to work .
Should you buy a drive with this support? Definitely worth it if you want to carry all the content stored on the drive with you. Relevant for those who constantly lack space on a smartphone or other device, but there are no other options for increasing memory for media content.

Additional selection criteria

Availability of protection from external influences:
Discs with moisture protection.
Dust-proof discs.
Impact protected discs.

Case material:
Disks with a body made of ordinary metal or aluminum.
Disks with good protection from external influences, but without a guarantee of performance against impact.

Discs with a plastic body.
Disks made of ordinary plastic are less protected from external influences.

Discs with a rubber body. 
Due to the presence of rubber, such discs do not fly out of your hands, and if they do fly out, they do not break, thanks to the rubber casing :)

Price ranges

1. External hard drives from 3000 to 4000 rubles.


In this price category, the features are: capacity 500 GB; portability; smaller cache size of 8 MB - performance will be lower than on disks with 16 MB cache or higher. Are you on a budget but need an external hard drive? We choose from this price category.

2. External hard drives from 4000 to 6000 rubles.

Here, the disk capacity will be on average 1 TB, while portability is preserved, the cache volume is increased to 16 MB on average, which in theory will be more productive than disks with a cache capacity of up to 8 MB. Do you think that 500 GB will not be enough for you and you can throw in a couple of hundred rubles? Then feel free to choose a disc from this price category!

3. External hard drives from 6,000 to 9,000 rubles.


In this price category there are 2 TB disks, but there are also a couple of 3 TB disks (in terms of price per GB, this is the best solution in this price range). Also, these disks have an average cache capacity of 32 MB, accordingly in theory productivity will be higher.
Do you want a disk with more capacity? Are you building a movie collection and can afford to purchase a disc in this price category? Buy it with confidence!

4. External hard drives from 9,000 to 14,000 rubles.


This price category includes disks with a capacity of 1 TB with a wireless Wi-Fi interface, and then from 3 TB to 5 TB.
These drives have a 3.5" form factor, but there are exceptions; more precisely, in this price category you can find a drive with a large capacity and at the same time it will be portable.
Need wireless storage? We save money for a disk with a wireless Wi-Fi interface, and if we have the required amount, we buy it right away!
Also, discs in this price category are suitable for those who want to expand or create archives or collections of fairly large volumes.

5. External hard drives from 14,000 to 25,000 rubles.


This price category includes disks with a capacity of up to 8 TB; such disks are intended more for storing large archives.
Discs in this price category are definitely not worth buying for the average user. Such discs are suitable for those who are puzzled by the goal of creating archives or collections of huge amounts of information.

Conclusion

When choosing an external hard drive, you need to consider not only the price range and capacity, but you should also consider where you will use this hard drive.
For example, you need a disk for home use as a video and photo archive, so the disk must have a capacity of 2 TB or more. In addition, you don’t have to worry about the portability of the drive since it will be in your home. Such drives often have a 3.5" form factor and, accordingly, the power is external; due to this, no problems will arise when connecting. (On older PCs, there may be problems when connecting a large-capacity drive without external power; there may not be enough power and the drive will not start).

The most important characteristic when choosing a hard one is its reliability. We can talk about the reliability of hard drives for a long time. But limiting ourselves to a few words, we can say that when choosing an external hard drive you need to read reviews and reviews of a specific model. Every manufacturer has defects. But in the modern world, the number of defects decreases over time, so there is no need to worry, the percentage of defects is very low.

Disks without mechanical parts are more reliable against shock and impact - these are SSD disks (solid-state drives). Their lighter weight, portability, quiet operation, and excellent speed performance are advantageous for people who need mobility and reliability.
Cons: high cost per GB. And remember, the choice is always yours.


Make the right choice, good shopping and see you soon ;-)

Modern users need to separate business and personal information. This may be due to various reasons: virus attacks, confidential or proprietary information that should not be publicly available for obvious reasons. For this purpose, removable storage devices are used. Which one is better: flash drive or external hard drive?

Pros and cons of portable devices

In the question of what is best to choose for working with information, you should start from its importance, the speed of access to it and the requirements that are put forward to the medium. A flash drive and an external hard drive have their own advantages and difficulties that are worth paying attention to.

Benefits of an external hard drive

1. Convenient and durable.
2. Stores large files, no need to use multiple flash drives.
3. The ability to use the disk for an unlimited number of times, unlike a flash drive, the shelf life of which expires after the 10,000th recording.

The disadvantages of the device are the following: the requirement for an additional port for power, it is expensive, you need to pay up to three thousand rubles for a 250 GB device, low resistance to temperature changes.

External hard drives are available in two types: standard 3.5 inches and miniature 2.5 inches. The first of them plays the role of increasing memory or computer. It is heavy and also requires additional nutrition. The second has less weight and memory size, but at the same time has shockproof properties.

Characteristics of a flash drive

1. Low price of the device. Let’s say a device with a memory capacity of 16 GB will cost up to 800 rubles.
2. Convenient to use, takes up little space, practical for office work and students.
3. Has a high speed of reading or writing information.
4. Low power consumption, which is very important if the laptop is not connected to the network.
5. Large selection of shapes and colors of flash drives.

Among the disadvantages, we should highlight the lack of a USB port in some gadgets, as well as the inability to reproduce information if the flash drive is “broken.”

Answering the question of which device is preferable: an external hard drive or a flash drive, it must be said that it is better to have both on your desktop. Although the confrontation between the two necessary user devices will continue for a long time.

Information is measured in colossal volumes, and there is a catastrophic shortage of places to store it. We need compact media that provides a large volume. It is clear that only an external hard drive meets such requirements.

When choosing a means for storing and transmitting information, many users may face difficulties in choosing, since today on the shelves you can find CDs, flash drives and external hard drives designed for this purpose.

Flash drive vs. CD

Today there are a huge number of different ways and means for storing and transmitting information, for example, from one computer to another. When choosing such a device, many users may face difficulties in choosing. For example, is it better to buy a flash drive or a disk for these purposes? It is worth noting that in this case the choice can be made towards a flash drive. The fact is that, firstly, the USB drive is smaller in size, and, secondly, the amount of its memory is in no way inferior to modern CDs and DVDs. In addition, the cost of such flash drives today is practically unbreakable, which means that anyone can easily buy even a 16 GB USB flash drive.

Flash drive or external hard drive?

Naturally, it is much more difficult to choose between a USB flash drive and an external hard drive. Of course, even a 64 GB flash drive will cost much less than a 500 GB external hard drive, but this is directly related not only to the maximum capacity of the device, but also to the data transfer speed and quality.

What is better to choose in the end? It is believed that in this case, USB flash drives benefit solely due to their mobility. They are much smaller and more convenient to wear to work, etc. As a result, it turns out that if you need such a drive not only at home, but, for example, also at work, then, of course, you should go with a flash drive. If the drive will be used quite rarely and only at home, then it is better to go with an external hard drive. Firstly, anyone today can buy it at an affordable price. Secondly, its volume usually ranges from 500 GB to several terabytes, and this will allow you to store much more information than on a regular flash drive. Thirdly, the speed of processing and saving data on an external drive is much higher than that of a regular flash drive. A significant difference and, perhaps, disadvantage of such disks is their size. The owner of the device, of course, can carry it with him to work, but to do this he will have to pack it, take with him a cord for connecting to a personal computer, etc. A flash drive, on the contrary, can simply be put in your pocket.

In the end, naturally, everyone chooses for themselves which is better - a flash drive or an external hard drive. If you carefully study all the characteristics and operating options of these devices, you can always opt for a more suitable type for work or study, which will help you save and transfer the necessary information every day.

Modernity places new demands on technology, and this especially applies to computer technology. Once upon a time, the capacity of a USB drive of one gigabyte seemed fantastically large, but today you have to transfer files from computer to computer, for example, with HD movies, for which 32 gigabytes is no longer enough. USB drives that use hard drives as information storage can help with this. disks, and which most people simply call " ".

You will need

  • A computer or laptop with the Windows operating system installed, an external hard drive, basic computer skills

Instructions

The next possible source of the problem is the lack of energy for the flash drive to work properly. See if any other devices are still working, such as external hard drives on other USB hosts. Please note that malfunction of the flash drive due to lack of power especially often occurs when connected via a USB hub.

If the problem is not with the power supply, try again to the USB port, and then on a computer with Windows OS pre-installed, click Start -> Control Panel. Your task is to find out whether the computer accidentally assigned the flash drive a drive letter that was already in use. Select the menu Computer Management -> Disk Management. In the list of disks already installed and known to the system, find the flash drive and use the right-click submenu to change the drive letter, then click OK.

Unfortunately, if none of the methods helped, then it’s time to assume that the flash drive is infected with a virus. However, if a modern antivirus with the ability to scan external storage media is installed on your computer, then the option will very quickly become the first and main option, since in most cases the antivirus perfectly identifies infected files on a flash drive and blocks access to it from the computer. With this development of events, the real problem becomes saving data on external media, because after treating the virus it is usually required, since the computer stops seeing it. In theory, this can be avoided. However, only a very experienced user can do this.

Sources:

  • if the flash drive does not open

Sometimes it is useful for a user to have with him a storage medium containing a working and configured copy of Windows. With such media you can run any computer, and you will always have settings and documents with you. True, installing Windows on an external hard drive disk or flash drive has several nuances.

Instructions

Decide on the set that you want to see on your portable version of the operating system. Plugins are placed in the plugin subdirectory of the PE Builder installation directory.

Click the "Build" button and wait for the process to complete.

Run the file peinst.cmd, located in the pluginpeinst subdirectory of the PE Builder installation directory.

To perform installation on the media you specified, first press button “5” and then “1”.

Related article

Sources:

  • installing windows from external

Buying a flash drive, like any other electronic device, requires a serious approach, because if you buy the first one you come across flash drive, then it is quite possible that you will have to go to the store again.

Instructions

When choosing, first of all, you should know that USB Flash drives differ not only in memory capacity, but also in data transfer speed, physical dimensions, data protection capabilities, case materials and can be either a simple office means of storing and transferring data or a stylish image device.

If you are looking flash drive In order to be able to transfer small files and folders from one computer to another, you can choose any model you like with a memory capacity of 2 Gb or more - this will be quite enough for these purposes.