My external hard drive just stopped responding a while ago when I was opening a torrent file with uTorrent (the files get saved on the external drive). I have tried unplugging it, and plugging it back in (several times), switching it off and on again (several times), rebooting the computer with the drive on. None of that has helped. Windows gives me the USB Device Not Recognized error.

As the very unhelpful user manual says, the drive model is Buffalo DriveStation HD-HSU2-UC Series. Right now both the power and access lights are on steadily and the device is ominously silent. When I had just rebooted, it was making relatively loud humming (?) kinda noise and the Access light wasn't on (it was still on during reboot, though).

Anything else non-tech-savvy that I can try before saying goodbye to my beloved film collection and going out to buy a new external drive?

Thanks.

Did you try plugging it in another machine (other USB ports on the same machine are not always sufficient as they often share the same controller)?

If that fails the bit more tech savvy is to open up the case, take out the drive, and connect it directly to your PC. You'll probably find a normal SATA/IDE drive in there.

Yeah, I just tried plugging it into my laptop - same results. I discovered that this drive might still be under warranty, though, so I'll go to the shop and ask if they can do anything. Thank you, Menthix.

Once upon a time not too long ago, my brother's external HDD died. It simply wouldn't be read by the PC with the same error (device not recognized). It was in warranty so we could send it to the company (in Ireland, it seemed). It however was showing the HDD light sometimes and the disc was definitely moving (you can sense the rotation of the platter). So I opened up the HDD instead (voiding the warranty of course) and connected the 2.5" HDD inside into my desktop. Voila! working again..
This might be a one off case but for me, when the HDD was working but not being shown by the PC (even after checking on different ports and different machines), it was a problem with the Sata to USB interface that the external HDD was packed with.. Not sure why it decided to die randomly but it did.

So my suggestion would be to try to get your warranty.. if they can't help you, you can always open it up (seeing as without the warranty, the HDD is worthless anyway if it isn't working so you might as well open it and connect it into your desktop internally).

That's what I would do.. oh wait, that's what I did Might just be me, oh well Just trying to give you an option in case the warranty doesn't come through, that's all. Hope it doesn't have to come to that :P

Good luck!

Also, the warranty service probably won't recover any data regardless the state of the drive. On the other hand, opening the case probably requires breaking a seal which voids warranty regardless why you opened it up.

New drive or get your data back... decisions, decisions .

Forgot to mention that.. Thanks Menthix. The reason why I opened up my brother's drive was because he had bank data on it which he didn't want to send to the company and couldn't afford to wait a month or so for it to make a round trip. So I offered to get the data out for him in exchange for letting me keep his drive (I desperately needed space then )

So if you have anything important on it.. think about it
Though Menthix, I must say, the company (Verbatim) told me that they would return the drive with the data if the drive itself wasn't damaged (which was my case). So they would have changed the interface card and given the drive with the data back to me.

Haz, its best you confirm their policy before sending your drive in. If you have data on it that you need, ask them if you'll get the same drive back if possible. If you have any sensitive data on it then beware, I wouldn't really trust someone with my sensitive data, what ever be their privacy policy

Yeah, I'm going to ask if I can get the same drive back no matter what, because I don't want my data ending up god knows where. I'd rather have it not fixed than have someone laugh at my silly photos and possibly post them online somewhere (my backups, including photos, were there as well).

Thank you, JA.