# External HDD Not Recognized

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-hdd-not-recognized/161726>\
**Category:** random\
**Created:** [September 6, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-hdd-not-recognized/161726 "2005-09-06T16:30:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ContinuumXLS](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/continuumxls/32/544_2.png) [@ContinuumXLS](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/ContinuumXLS)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-hdd-not-recognized/161726/1 "2005-09-06T16:30:32Z")

</div>

Hello everyone,

I have a weird problem, and I was hoping that maybe some of you would be able to help me fix it. I have an external 250g hard drive, and I’m using usb 2 to connect the hdd to my laptop. My laptop is an HP Pavilion dv4000 17’’ widescreen. It is running a dual boot system with Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu Linux

The weird thing is that only sometimes it is not recognized. It happened a few times last night, but after the third or fourth try it worked. Now this morning when I tried connecting the two, I haven’s had any success.

I get the following box that pops up in xp pro:

> One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and windows does not recognize it.

Thanks in advance for any help 😃