Asus N56VZ Laptop not recognizing 3TB External HDD

alphanumeric · 12 Apr 2013

It might be a BIOS limitation?
Everything You Need to Know About 3TB Hard Drives | PCWorld

ICIT2LOL · 12 Apr 2013

alphanumeric said:

It might be a BIOS limitation?
Everything You Need to Know About 3TB Hard Drives | PCWorld

Hadn't thought of that one alpha and just another thought was it is a Go Flex model too and from the couple I have had (never again) the dock "base" is a pig of a thing - just was reading again what the OP said about the light flashing on and then off and it occurred to me maybe that base is the problem. But you are probably right.

alphanumeric · 12 Apr 2013

This seems to be one of those, you have to be there to fix it, problems. There could be any number of reasons why it doesn't work, and several of them are hard to prove one way or another. 3TB struck me as a big drive and they can be problematic on older PC's. I honestly don't know why it isn't working so at this point I'm just trying to give an educated guess.

ICIT2LOL · 12 Apr 2013

alphanumeric said:

This seems to be one of those, you have to be there to fix it, problems. There could be any number of reasons why it doesn't work, and several of them are hard to prove one way or another. 3TB struck me as a big drive and they can be problematic on older PC's. I honestly don't know why it isn't working so at this point I'm just trying to give an educated guess.

Well I am with you on this one too a you say you need it in your hot little hand to see what it actually does. It is the light flick on and off that has me puzzled - why it should start then straight away turn off sort of doesn't make any sense.

From a personal view I don't lie anything larger than 1TB - too much to loose if it goes up in flames or whatever. I would sooner spread the data out and just lose bits

wasabipea · 13 Apr 2013

ICit2lol said:

wasabipea said:

ICit2lol said:

Ok I have had a scout around including that Seagate forum but it seems that the machine is the problem if the Go Flex works in the other machines.

Have you had a look in the Device Manager to see if there is anything there? See my pic

Nothing comes up on Device Manager. No yellow symbols either. I haven't had any connectivity issues with anything else I've plugged in though... Just don't understand what's wrong.

Just so we have it right Wasa the drive is not there or it is there but no yellow symbols? Sorry mate but just cannot see why the drive is working ok on other machines and not this one.

The drive is not there AND there is no yellow symbol.

Also, after the light turns off, the drive keeps spinning. So the thing itself is on. I don't know why the light goes off immediately either...

wasabipea · 13 Apr 2013

alphanumeric said:

This seems to be one of those, you have to be there to fix it, problems. There could be any number of reasons why it doesn't work, and several of them are hard to prove one way or another. 3TB struck me as a big drive and they can be problematic on older PC's. I honestly don't know why it isn't working so at this point I'm just trying to give an educated guess.

It is not an older PC though :/ Should I just give up on this?

alphanumeric · 13 Apr 2013

I wish I had an answer? I may have been off track with the BIOS limitation idea. I'm not sure that would apply to an external drive. I did some more reading but all that did was make me more confused. Right now I don't have any more ideas or suggestions. Hopefully somebody else will step in and give you some help.

wasabipea · 16 Apr 2013

alphanumeric said:

I wish I had an answer? I may have been off track with the BIOS limitation idea. I'm not sure that would apply to an external drive. I did some more reading but all that did was make me more confused. Right now I don't have any more ideas or suggestions. Hopefully somebody else will step in and give you some help.

I was mostly worried that this might be a symptom of a bigger problem with my laptop.

However I don't urgently need to access the drive, so I'll just let it go for now... I'll continue to try other external drives and see if I can provide more info in the future that will help.

Thank you guys for trying!!