Hard Drive Enclosure not being seen by 7

Please help!

I recently upgraded my operating system to Windows 7 64 bit. I have an Intel MB with an E4500 core 2 dou processor running with 4 gigs ram.

I have an old ide enclose that all of the sudden wont be seen by the new operating system. I have changed the jumper on the hard drive in every combination possible. In the past, I have found that different computers can be sensitive to jumper positions wven if its not logical, its just the way it is.

Anyway, its a WD1600JB hard drive. When I plug it into the USB port on my box, it makes that quick 2 tone sound through the speakers, but then nothing happens. So when I manually check under devices, sometimes it tells me the device is working properly and shows up as a USB mass storage device, and sometimes it tell me the drivers could not be found.

In either case, when you look under computer, it NEVER shows up as an accessible hard drive like it should.

The hard drive is spinning for sure, and I know it was working recently, so I doubt that it is broken, its more that the new operating system doesnt like it, plus again, it sometimes does show as a mass storage device that is working properly under devices although its never accessible.

I am wondering if I should try getting a new enclosure.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Welcome to SevenForums Michael

Try this:

Start :ar: Computer Management :ar: Disk Management

If the Ext HD shows up, see if you can right click on it & asign it a drive Letter

When I have the jumper set as a slave which is what I think that it should be, the enclosure/hard drive is seen by the Devices and Printers tab on Windows 7. When I right click on properties, it says the device is a USB device, (which is how I have it connected to the computer) and says its working properly.

It also gives me the prt #
Port_#0003.Hub_#0008

Yet, when I go under "Computer" tab, it doesnt show up with my other drives the way my USB back up memory would.

All of my other back up devices work properly when I use them on this machine by using the USB port which is 2.0.

Maybe the enclosure is a 1.0 and not backward compatible since its old? That doesnt sound right since the computer does see something under the devices tab.

All the ext USB adapters & enclosures I have used on IDE HD's require the drive (or jumper) be set as Master not slave.

Thanks for trying to help me. The enclosure, drive, or computer is simply plagued!

When I switch the jumper to Master, I get a yelow triangle over it in the "Device and Printers" field. When I right click on it and do a properties, I get a non working code and bad or outdated driver. I try to "get a driver" from an update, and I get a message telling me I have the lasteset driver.

When I set the jumper to Slave, I only get this error on my pc. The USB Mass Storage device is not in error and a right click tell me the device is working properly. Of course, its never avaialbe in my computer along side the other drives as all of my other enclure device are normally found.

My computer does stay in error though. When I click on the PC icon in the device window, I get the device tree. I see a yellow triangle with error on it in the USB column. It states there is an PCI error. It tells me that the driver for the PCI is not installed and when I try to fix it, I get the message that it cant be fixed and that I should try alternative methods.

I dont know if this is a factor, but it might be a fat 32 formatted hard drive. It might not be formatted at all, or it could even be NTFS. I am not not sure.

All I know is that periodically with the drives I have laying around, some work just fine, and others like this one are nightmares for no apparent reason.

But I would like to thank you for your time wither way, and I will just have to take this to a computer store and try a machine there, or submit the drive to service.

Thanks!

Try removing the jumper altogether since WD drives use that setting for single drives.

Hello and thank for the suggestion.

I tired that and while the drive was powered here were the results:

1. Under devices, the drive showed up as a USB mass stoarge device. A right click revealed it was working properly, and is considered a USB device in the hardware section of the tab.

2. When I clicked on the PC icon with the yellow triangle and the exclamation point inside, the error message was that ""The driver for PCI Simple Communications controller is not installed. Install the latest driver for this device"" however, when I select "fix" after that, it doesnt work. It checks the net and says its getting a new driver but then gives an error and says it cant find one for the PCI Simple Communications Controller and show a red "x" inside a circle.

I believe I made this hard drive a back up a long time ago on a P3 computer and I also believe its a Fat 32 formatted drive.

However, I wouldnt understand why Windows 7 64 bit would be prejudiced to it.
I also tried to see this device using an old Mac G4. It didnt work either. I also tried to have a Windows 7 32 bit laptop take a look and it didnt see it either.

Normally, I would say the drive is bad, but I havent used it since I last backed up to it 2 years ago. It starts fine, and I know the drive is operational. I also know the enclosure works because I use it on other drives with my Mac.

I believe this is a good ole fashion Microsoft screwing! Thanks for your suggestion though!

An obvious question: Is this an enclosure for a 3.5" drive? If so, have you hooked the enclosure to your pc and used external power as well? USB power alone may be enough to cause to drive to spin, but not provide enough power to sustain normal operation.

Thanks for pointing this out. I forgot to mention:

1. It a 3.5 inch external ide enclosure
2. It has its own power cord and adapter which is plugged in.
3. It has usb or firewire 400 connectors and I have tried both.
4. The enclosure was purchased about 5 years ago. Its a Mad Dog mega vault. I bought it at comp usa, show you how old.

Sometimes, I use the enclosure with another ide drive I have and back up from my old Mac G4, so I know it works.

I am pretty confident if I had an older Intel p3 or p4 computer and stuck this drive in as a slave, it would be seen right away. The problem is that I dont. It was previously connected to a Gateway P3 when I backed up with it. Its even possible that it was my slave drive back then in that old machine. Would Gateway poison the drive in some way when they set it up for use as a slave?

Either way, I would think that it should still be seen when using the enclosure and connecting it to my PC now.

Thanks again for chipping away at this for me!

A thought: You may have a conflict with drive letter assignment.

Connect the enclosure to another pc that you know it works with. Go into Computer Management and change the drive letter (something like M,N,O...etc). After changing the drive letter, reconnect it to the pc you are trying to use it with and see if that works.

Michael51828 said:

Hello and thank for the suggestion.

I also tried to see this device using an old Mac G4. It didnt work either.

I believe this is a good ole fashion Microsoft screwing! Thanks for your suggestion though!

Click to expand...

???

Michael51828 said:

I dont know if this is a factor, but it might be a fat 32 formatted hard drive. It might not be formatted at all, or it could even be NTFS. I am not not sure.

Click to expand...

Hi,

I think you could be onto something - try a format to NTFS, if you already haven't.

I saw similar problems with an oldish (2006) WD500aaks external USB hard drive - formatting to NTFS seened to fix the issue.

Regards,
Golden

mpcrsc562 said:

A thought: You may have a conflict with drive letter assignment.

Connect the enclosure to another pc that you know it works with. Go into Computer Management and change the drive letter (something like M,N,O...etc). After changing the drive letter, reconnect it to the pc you are trying to use it with and see if that works.

Click to expand...

You do realize changing the drive letter is a OS specific thing - it has nothing to do with the drive itself. Drive letters are a windows association of a drive letter to a specific device (drive signature) - it doesn't follow the drive. Moving the drive to another computer, changing the drive letter, then moving the drive back changes nothing.

I couldn't tell from the OP description whether this ever worked on Windows 7. If not, I think it is a case of a missing device driver. google for Windows 7 drier for your specific enclosure.