Old Hard Disk now fitted into a caddy but it is not being recognised

stanferry · 13 Jul 2012

I took my old SATA hard disk & fitted it into a caddy. On caddy I am getting a green light indicating HDD is connected & the hard disk is idle, a red light should go on if hard disk is being accessed.

Although caddy is Plug & Play it is not being recognised. The old hard disk previously was my primary hard disk running VISTA while my computer is now running Windows 7.

I would appreciate any help as to how I can resolve!!

essenbe · 13 Jul 2012

Click start, right click computer, select manage, choose disk management in the left column and see if your hard drive is recognized. If it is, it will probably not have a drive letter, right click it, choose 'change drive letter or path' on the next screen click add then select a letter from the drop down menu. If it wants to initialize it, select no. It will format it and anything on it will be gone.

stanferry · 13 Jul 2012

Dear Essenbe,
Thank you for taking time to help me.
Sadly nothing changed when I changed designated letters. Other than C:/ & DVD Drive I do not know what the others are!

Under Disk Management I see:-

C:/ Main Hard disk Disc 0
F:/ Disc 1
G:/ Disc 2
H:/ Disc 3
D:/ DVD Drive

essenbe · 13 Jul 2012

What I was trying to see is if you had a drive listed that had no drive letter assigned to it. Explorer cannot 'see' a drive with no letter. In the bottom portion of disk management the drives and drive letters are listed. If you do not have a drive letter assigned to one of them, assign one. It is not necessary to re assign letters. Below is a snip of my disk management. Notice the bottom portion and see each drive with a drive letter.

Old Hard Disk now fitted into a caddy but it is not being recognised-zz.png

stanferry · 14 Jul 2012

Thanks again for your diligence.
All the drives shown had a letter assigned to them other than the DVD Drive.

essenbe · 14 Jul 2012

I presume the hard drive is a 3.5" desktop hard drive. Does the caddy you put it into have it's own power source? When you installed Windows did you also install the motherbosrd drivers? If not, you can download them here if it is the computer in your specs. Especially the chipset drivers. If the caddy is USB and not self powered (has it's own power source) the USB port will not have enough power to run a 3.5" hard drive and will have problems with some 2.5" hard drives. From looking at your disk management description, I assume you have 4 internal hard drives and a DVD. Your system specs only list 1 internal hard drive. Could you post a screenshot of your expanded disk management like the one I posted of mine, showing the top and bottom half. Also tell us how many hard drives you have in your computer.

stanferry · 15 Jul 2012

Many thanks again:-

presume the hard drive is a 3.5" desktop hard drive. Yes

Does the caddy you put it into have it's own power source? Yes

When you installed Windows did you also install the motherbosrd drivers? If not, you can download them here (http://www.medion.com/gb/service/download/) if it is the computer in your specs. Especially the chipset drivers. I did not!!!!

From looking at your disk management description, I assume you have 4 internal hard drives and a DVD. Your system specs only list 1 internal hard drive. Could you post a screenshot (https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html)of your expanded disk management like the one I posted of mine, showing the top and bottom half. I do not have 4 internal drives!!! Screenshot attached. I am puzzed about number shown!!!

Also tell us how many hard drives you have in your computer. Only one.

Since previous communictions I am now using a USB modem which shows up as VMC.

As you know I have been struggling to get my caddy working. I decided therefore to open up the caddy but keep the hard disk & end plate with the plug still connected & see if it works. When I took end off it was disconnected from the disk!! Realised that the caddy was 61/2” long, internally while the disk is 6”. What must have happened as the disk slid away from the end plate before I got the chance to screw disk in place. I fitted a 1/2” thick packing piece & refitted disk. SUCCESS.

essenbe · 15 Jul 2012

That's great news. Glad you have it working, well done. I also assume you have a memory card reader installed. If so, that is what the extra hard drives are. Windows assigns them a drive letter. You will notice the removable drive designation on the left column. Also, be sure to download and install all of the motherboard drivers from the manufacturers web site. They are much more current than the supplied driver DVD.