Problem with External Enclosure

[Joan Archer]

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.

 

[myzr7]

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.

 

[DocBrown]

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.

 

[Joan Archer]

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.

 

[DocBrown]

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

 

[Dwarf]

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.

 

[Joan Archer]

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 ?

 

[DocBrown]

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

 

[Joan Archer]

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.

 

[Joan Archer]

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

 

[Dwarf]

Hi Joan,

With reference to Legacy Product Specifications : WD800AB

You should try the following options: Single (Neutral Position) (try both alternatives) or Single (Standard Installation) or Dual (Master) (my recommendation).

 

[Joan Archer]

Thanks for that Dwarf, I'm shutting down now but will look at this again tomorrow not even sure how you set the pins yet.

Goodnight I'll be back tomorrow

 

[Joan Archer]

Just taken these two photos, one is the back of the hard drive and the other is the ribbon connector from the enclosure.

 

[mickey megabyte]

joan, looking at your pics, it seems that it's already set to 'single' or 'master', as there is no small plastic 'jumper' on the middle five pins.





...and the ribbon connector can only go in the one way.

----------------------------------------------

sorry i don't have a solution, apart from saying that everything looks right.

 

[Joan Archer]

Thanks mickey, that's what I thought when I looked at it again and I knew the ribbon could only go in one way. Because I've never done any of this before I had no idea what it was supposed to look like and not seeing anything that looked movable I was stumped.
The enclosure does tell you on the box it works with Windows 7 so I'm at a bit of a loss to know how to make it work.

 

[DocBrown]

Yes, the jumper configuration looks correct for Master or single & the ribbon cable looks okay, also. I guess we all will have to put on our thinking hats for this one.

 

[rbeldua]

you could try plugin the enclosure to another usb port, try at the back port and not the front port of the computer, in my case it happens a lot as i back up my files using the front port then a message will appear usb not recognized. i plug it in different port using the back port..then its ok..

 

[Joan Archer]

Well it's been tried in the back of hubby's machine and the front port, today it's showing in Device Manager as a Mass Storage Device with the exclamation yellow triangle, that's the only place you can see it. Clicking on it's Properties says it cant work Code 10. It doesn't show in Disk Management at all. It's not as if the hard drive is a new empty one as it has the XP OS on it plus his programs and other stuff, he just stopped using that machine when he got the new one and we just took the hard drive out of it.

I get the same result trying it on my machine.

The unit came with a CD but the booklet says that's supposed to be just for 98SE as the other OS's don't need drivers. The contents on the CD are Acrobat Reader, Drivers and the manual.

 

[mickey megabyte]

hmm, you're right that it shouldn't need drivers - it should just 'plug and play' as with any other usb drive - you know, plug it in, get a little notification message like 'new hardware found' then 'your drive is ready for use' (or whatever it says)...

maybe it's a faulty enclosure - i don't suppose you've got any other drives to test it with?

 

[Joan Archer]

No I haven't mickey, it may mean giving it back to son-in-law to sort out at this rate if we can't find a solution.