I'm afraid I'm rather baffled by this problem with my 40GB USB hard drive.

Basically, Linux doesn't recognize it as a device at all, I can't mount it, fdisk it, fsck it, anything. It's as if it's not plugged in.

First I thought it must be a problem with the USB cable, so Iplugged it into my windows box to test it out with explore2fs, and it didn't find it. Good, I thought, until...windows found it as a device called "RC15" and started trying to find drivers for it.

So, this must mean that it can communicate with the computer, but there's a problem with the hard drive.

Any ideas? I don't really care about recovering the data from it, I've got backups, I just hope it isn't permanently damaged

Cheers,
L.

Hi,
ive had some experiences with USB hard disks on linux so i hope this helps.

1) reinstall ur usb drivers in windows and then hook up the hard disk to the usb port ( u may hav to restart, fuc*ed up windows).
2) if it shows up on "my computer" u should be able to format it. if the format is NTFS then u will need to reformat the disk into fat32 ( linux as far as i know cannot handel NTFS properly and stuff but fat32 works fine )
3) hook it up to ur linux box and see how it goes.

if this doesnt work i would be inclined to think its a hardware problem but lets hope it doesnt go that far.

cheers!

[ACCIDENTAL DOUBLE-POST, SORRY]

Sounds like a plan!

What do you mean by the usb drivers on my windows machine though, the drivers for the hard drive (didn't come with any) or the drivers for the usb host stuff in windows?

Thanks again,
L.

sometimes u need to reinstall the USB drivers in windows. u can downloadUSB 2.0 drivers from anywhere, just google it.

all the best