Last updated on: July 27, 2008
1. Nothing happens when I plug in my USB drive
2. My USB drive is powered on but nothing shows up in My Computer
3. My “safely remove hardware” icon is gone
4. Error deleting files or folders
5. HI-speed device is plugged into a LO-speed USB port
6. Dual bay JBOD enclosure sees two separate drives instead of one big volume
8. What are the benefits of a truly hot swappable, hot pluggable drive enclosure
10. What are the benefits of a 2-in-1 drive enclosure docking station
11. How to setup NAS (Network Attached Storage)
12. How to find IP address of my NAS on the network
13. How to update NAS firmware
14. NAS drive spin down (power management)
15. NAS file system supported (LAN vs USB mode)
18. Product installation video
1. Nothing happens when I plug in my USB drive
Surge protectors You may wish to temporarily remove any surge protector and plug the drive into the wall outlet for troubleshooting purposes. Make sure all the connections are tight: power cable to wall, power cable to power supply, power supply to drive.
Cabling system Make sure you are using certified HI-speed USB 2.0 cable, included with all Eagle Tech external hard drives and external drive enclosures, for improved data signal integrity. Low quality USB cables may not be properly shielded and may lose data during high speed transfers or at longer lengths.
Powered USB hub Make sure you are using USB hub with adequate power supply. Low quality USB hubs usually draw power from the computer’s USB port and do not provide adequate power. Certain notebooks (mostly older notebooks) have underpowered USB ports and may require that you plug in additional USB cable to provide adequate power supply (the USB Y splitter cable is included with all portable 2.5” drive enclosures).
USB hub controller To confirm that your USB host controller is working properly under Windows XP, right click on My Computer > click on Manage > click on Device Manager on the left panel. If you see any yellow exclamation marks or red circles under "Universal Serial Bus controllers" that means your USB host controller is not working properly or missing a driver. Please contact your motherboard manufacturer for the appropriate driver software.
BIOS If the host controller is not seen in Device Manager then it is probably disabled in the computer’s BIOS. You can usually press “Del” or “F2” to enter BIOS setup when the computer starts. Please consult your motherboard user manual for details on how to enable USB 2.0 ports.
Service Pack Certain USB 2.0 host controllers may need Service Packs to operate properly. Windows XP added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 2, Windows 2000 added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 3 and improved the support in Service Pack 4. Please download the latest service packs from Microsoft for your operating system.
2. My USB drive is powered on but nothing shows up in My Computer
Caution: partitioning & formatting a drive will erase all data!
Brand new drive If you just received a brand new external drive, you may need to partition & format the drive to the recognizable format of the operating system. To partition and format a new disk under Windows XP, right click on My Computer > click on Manage > click on Disk Management on the left panel. On the right hand side you should see a list of all drives connected to your computer. Find the new unallocated drive in black color, it should say for example "74.53 GB unallocated". Right click on it > click on New Partition > a new partition wizard window will pop up, click on Next > select Primary Partition and click Next > select partition size in MB or GB and click Next > Assign new drive letter and click Next > format this partition using default values and click Next > click Finish. Windows will now partition and format your new disk so it can be recognized by the operating system (i.e. shows up as usable drive in My Computer). It may take up to 45 minutes to format a 500 GB or larger drive.
3. My “safely remove hardware” icon is gone
Caution: To prevent file corruption, please always click on the “safely remove hardware” icon in the taskbar’s notification area before unplugging external USB drives.
Re-register DLL Sometimes the “safely remove hardware” icon in the taskbar disappears. To re-register and re-activate the “safely remove hardware” window, please click on Start > click on Run > type in “RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll” and hit Enter. Now you can click on the device you want to stop.
4. Error deleting file or folder
Drive busy This is usually caused by programs that are still accessing the drive and its contents. Common causes are open files such as Word document or open Explorer showing the directory content of the drive. Close them all and try again.
File handles If you are still unable to delete files or folder, there are third party software that “unlocks” operating system file handles to let you delete “locked” files and folders. We recommend "Unlocker 1.8.7".
5. HI-speed device is plugged into a LO-speed USB port
Cabling system Make sure you are using certified HI-speed USB 2.0 cable, included with all Eagle Tech external hard drives and external drive enclosures, for improved data signal integrity. Low quality USB cables may not be properly shielded and may lose data during high speed transfers or at longer lengths.
Service Pack Certain USB 2.0 host controllers may need Service Packs to operate properly. Windows XP added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 2, Windows 2000 added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 3 and improved the support in Service Pack 4. Please download the latest service packs from Microsoft for your operating system.
6. Dual bay JBOD enclosure sees two separate drives instead of one big volume
Jumpers Please make sure to set the hardware JBOD or RAID 0 jumpers in appropriate position.
Caution: partitioning & formatting a drive will erase all data!
Drives with existing partitions In order for the JBOD and RAID 0 drive enclosures to combine two hard drives into one big volume, the two hard drives must not be “partitioned”. You must prepare both drives by deleting their partitions and power cycle the drive enclosure. Only then can the drive enclosure combine both drives into one big volume and recognizable to the operating system as one big volume.
Delete partitions To delete partition under Windows XP, right click on My Computer > click on Manage > click on Disk Management on the left panel. On the right hand side you should see a list of all drives connected to your computer. Find the two partitioned drive in black color, it should say for example "250 GB Healthy" and “500 GB Healthy”. Right click on it > click on Delete Partition > click on Yes to continue. Repeat for the second hard drive. When finished deleting partitions, power cycle the drive enclosure and follow the steps in Question # 2 to partition and format the new drive.
Cabling system Make sure you are using certified HI-speed USB 2.0 cable, included with all Eagle Tech external hard drives and external drive enclosures, for improved data signal integrity. Low quality USB cables may not be properly shielded and may lose data during high speed transfers or at longer lengths.
Powered USB hub Make sure you are using USB hub with adequate power supply. Low quality USB hubs usually draw power from the computer’s USB port and do not provide adequate power. Certain notebooks (mostly older notebooks) have underpowered USB ports and may require that you plug in additional USB cable to provide adequate power supply (the USB Y splitter cable is included with all portable 2.5” drive enclosures).
Service Pack Certain USB 2.0 host controllers may need Service Packs to operate properly. Windows XP added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 2, Windows 2000 added support for USB 2.0 in Service Pack 3 and improved the support in Service Pack 4. Please download the latest service packs from Microsoft for your operating system.
Media errors Essentially drive hardware failure. We recommend that you run Disk Doctors’ data recovery programs included in all external hard drives and drive enclosures (limited time offer) or visit our Service section for more details and -$200 discount coupon applicable towards Disk Doctors’ data recovery service when you submit a ticket via our website.
Write cache Windows file system may cache write operations and perform those writes when the system is idle in order to improve system performance. This is usually turned off by default for external drives. You can see if your drive has cache/delayed writing enabled by right clicking on the icon for the drive in the Disk Drive subtree of the Device Manager and selecting the Policies tab. Make sure you have selected “Optimize for quick removal” so that every bit of data is written to the external drive immediately.
8. What are the benefits of a truly hot swappable, hot pluggable drive enclosure
Quickly access different drives Traditional PC storage components such as ATA drives (internal or external) do not allow surprise removals from the machine while the operating system is running. Doing so causes operating system hang ups, instability and data loses. Certain models of our drive enclosure were designed to tackle this problem, giving professional users the flexibility to exchange hard drives on the fly (without rebooting the system). For more information please click here.
Fast Installation Technology This patented mechanical design allows you to snap-in hard drives without using tools. Works like a hard drive reader without the bare disk risks. Great for IT users looking to quickly hot swap, backup or image multiple hard drives.
The following items feature F.I.T.:
Single bay drive enclosures > ET-CSMESU2-BK, ET-CSMSU2-BK, I-NA203U, I-NA204UE, I-NA304UE and I-NA306UE.
Dual bay drive enclosures > I-NA305J.
HDD docking station > I-NA307.
10. What are the benefits of a 2-in-1 drive enclosure docking station
Highly mobile and synchronized Take the hassle out of keeping multiple copies of the same data across multiple PCs and notebooks. All you need is this portable drive enclosure while on the road, and simply insert it to the docking station at home or office. This way your data stay synchronized. If you are a mobile user and work between home and office, you will appreciate the convenience our 2-in-1 drive enclosure docking station brings.
The following items features 2-in-1 solution:
2.5"/3.5" form factor > I-NA205UE
3.5"/5.25" form factor > I-NA303US