USB Hard Drive problem - RC15

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I have been using a WDC external hard drive for several years on a WIN XP SP2
Dell notebook system. Today when I plugged it into a USB port, I got a
message "New hardware found - RC15". When I try to install it, I get a
message, "Driver not found". I have not found anything meaningful on this
problem anywhere. One suggestion was to delete the Windows/inf/infcache.1
file and let Windows recreate it. That did not help. I'm hoping someone here
can help me access this very important external hard drive.
 
Bart7 said:
I have been using a WDC external hard drive for several years on a WIN XP SP2
Dell notebook system. Today when I plugged it into a USB port, I got a
message "New hardware found - RC15". When I try to install it, I get a
message, "Driver not found". I have not found anything meaningful on this
problem anywhere. One suggestion was to delete the Windows/inf/infcache.1
file and let Windows recreate it. That did not help. I'm hoping someone here
can help me access this very important external hard drive.
Click to expand...

Several years of wear and tear with a portable device is pretty good.
Several possibilities: The electronics suite of the external HD has
failed or the consequence of a recent update to the system.
 
Thanks for the reply, but can anyone suggest a way of saving the data on this
drive, either by installing it in a desktop or some other means?
Bart
 
As you are probably aware, most external USB drives are automatically
recognized by XP, without the need for any extra drivers.

In this case I would be worried that the external drive is bad.

Try plugging it into a different PC, also running XP. If that works, then
there is something odd about the first PC. Perhaps, try a different USB
port? Also, try a different USB device. Can the first PC see anything USB?
If necessary, use the XP device manager to uninstall the USB port itself
(with the drive not attached), then use the same device manager to detect
new hardware, and hopefully fix the USB port. This is obviously a software
fix, not a hardware fix.

But, if the USB drive fails on two computers, then it is likely the drive.
The one other possibility is the USB cable. Don't laugh, as simple as
cables are, I actually had one go bad. Cables are cheap, and if youydon't
already own several, one of your friends probably does. Changing cables is
a cheap test. Do it.

As for salvaging files from a USB drive, most are plain IDE drives with a
USB interface added. In fact, you can buy a USB enclosure without a drive
at many PC stores and make your own USB drive by adding any normal IDE hard
drive. If the problem is the USB interface within the external drive, then
there is a good chance that the IDE drive could be placed in a different
enclosure or attached directly to an IDE cable on any modern (decktop) PC.
The drive will also need a power cable, but those are pretty standard on
most PCs.

But, if the problem is the IDE interface, that is more difficult, since that
is part of the thing we typically call a hard drive. Still, there are
professional services (not cheap) that will remove the magnetic platter from
one hard drive and read them in another. But, if the platters are damaged,
then the odds of recovering data is not good. Most professional services
will not charge much (if anything), unless they can not recover data. Try
searching Google with "hard drive recovery service" to get some idea of the
possibilities.

Good luck.
 
Bob,
Many thanks for such a detailed response. I am in the process of doing all
the things you suggested. I built the external drive from a hard drive and
case, so I am familiar with your ideas. I will post any solution I find here.

Bart
 
My problem is solved...

If anyone else ever has this problem, here is what I did...

The USB port was proved OK by plugging in another external hard drive. Then
I installed a new hard drive in the external case. It yielded the same RC15
error code. My conclusion is the USB electronics in the case have failed. I
have ordered a new external drive kit. Many thanks.

Bart
 
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