External drive some time show up some time not?

Question

Strange problem. I bought an external hard drive for backup last month.  When I connected my external drive, it did show up. However, when I work for sometime, I found the light of the external drive turned off by itself, then it did not show up any more. I then disconnected it and plugged it to my laptop again, the light was on again and it showed up again! What was happening?????

Answer 1

thats normal....

that light is the ACTIVITY light... basically if you are not using the drive it will not who the light....

Answer 2

Most likely the External drive is going to sleep after a period of inactivity. There may be a setting you can change to prevent this, check the instructions.

Answer 3

Have you tried a different cable? That would be the most obvious to try. If not, then the hard drive or the USB port is bad.