Windows 7: Problem with External Enclosure

My hubby has a new PC running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. His old machine was my old XP machine so I thought I could use that drive in an enclosure for him to use for backup purposes.

Son-in-law got me the enclosure its a Pluscom 3.5 IDE to USB 2.0 Enclosure. I've put the drive in, it's a Western Digital 80 GB one but when connecting to his machine it goes through the process of installing the device drivers but after a time comes up with a box saying it failed and it's not recognised.

In Device Manager it just shows in the USB list as an Unknown Device and I can't see it anywhere, it doesn't show up in Disk Management at all.

Thought I'd try it in my machine which is 32 bit but the same problem although in Device Manager it does actually say it's a Mass Storage Device but it has the yellow mark and I can't see it to do anything with it.

Has anyone got any ideas on what I can try, the drive still has XP installed on it which of course I want to wipe out so he has an empty drive to use for backing up his files.

Joan , I have used Sea Tools by Seagate. Its a bootable dvd that you build from a download. And also I have used Partition Wizard to format the drive that windows couldn't seem to offer the option.

Joan,

If it is a WD IDE, is the Jumper on the back of the drive set to Master or only a Single drive.
Double check the ribbon cable to make sure all the pins match up & that pin #1 matches the red line down one side of the ribbon cable.

Thanks Doc I'll check it when I get a minute and let you know, I do know the instructions mentioned making it Master but as this drive was in a computer and it was the only drive in there I would have presumed it was set to master.

@myzr7 don't know if your suggestion will be needed yet but I'll keep it in mind, I already have Partition Wizard installed on my machine from my dual booting days, thanks for the suggestion.

Sometimes Manufacturers set the drives with the jumper set to Cable Select (CS)

Good point about Cable Select (CS), Jack. For IDE drives (and in many systems these days this will only relate to optical drives), I prefer to explicitly set them to MAster or SLave, depending on their location on the interface cable, regardless of whether CS is supported or not.

Just waiting for the batteries to charge so I can take a photo but looking at it it does say Cable Select Setting under a box that has numbered blocks in it, will that make a difference ?

For the Ext enclosure, it needs to be set to Master or Single drive.

This may be something I'll have to leave for my son-in-law to do then as I'm not really sure how to do it and I can't get a decent photo to show what it looks like.

OK these photos are the best I managed they are from my phone.