IDE->USB Extneral Drives

[Dynash]

I bought a IDE->USB connector for my harddrive about 2 weeks ago, I only managed to find a plug spare to test it works. The plug was Japanese. So I tried it, but it says it is plug and play, it installs properly and says it is ready to use, but it doesn't show anywhere.

There aren't any drivers, no disk came with it.
Anyone know what could be causing it not to work?

I've tried it on 2 XP machines and a Vista machine.

edit: It shows up in Device manager, the driver is loaded, but this is what you see:

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/javakrypt/usb.png

[destinysharad]

Put your unused IDE hard drives to good use by turning them into external USB drives with this guide by Kulvir Bhogal. With a USB external case and a few quick steps, you'll have a handy removable storage space in no time.

I remember shopping a long time ago for a hard drive with my dad. We ended up buying a 10MB drive. I recall thinking at that time, "How will I ever fill up this hard drive?"

Enough nostalgia . . . . Let's move on to contemporary reality. Nowadays, with all the MP3s, digital pictures, and video files many users have, it is not too difficult to fill up a hard drive even with scores of gigabytes of capacity.

If you are like me, you might have a few hard IDE drives sitting around the house that were the victims of a swap-out upgrade. Instead of letting these drives go to waste, you might consider putting them to work by getting a USB external case, which can turn your internal IDE drive into an external USB drive. I'll show you here how to put your internal IDE drive into an external case so you can use your drive as a removable storage device.

[M Bacon]

Did you try the connectors with a different hard drive? Did you try it in linux? I had problems with a device not working in windows but it worked in linux instead. If the data isn't too important, did you try formatting it to a windows format(ntfs, fat, fat32)? I would use gparted which is with the unbuntu 9 disc or something else instead of your windows explorer to format the partition. Good luck!

[fnixws]

hmm.. seems a bit weird, have you tried:

Start
Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Disk Management

Find the disk, right click, partition, format and assign a drive letter.

[WL-Michael]

Hmm with that partition style, status and size it seems like the partition information is messed, which won't allow the drive to function properly. Usually this happens with thumb drives. But could be the cable possibly?

I'd try checking all leads of the cable and also Googlin a bit about the cable to see if any fixes or modified drivers have appeared.

[~ServerPoint~]

Whet you bought it everything was ok in the shop? Or you haven't test it there?

[Dynash]

I would try that, but the thing is, the disk has 50GB of data on it. haha. I'll copy it off though to my other HD and format it clean, perhaps it could be a messed up partition.

In XP it doesn't show AT ALL, but in Vista it shows up as "D - HD" something. But when you click it, it says something about D resource is unavaliable. I'll try later and get the proper error code. I was going to use Linux but my Ubuntu disk is scrathed to hell, might download and find a spare DVD later and test it.

Thanks for the help :)


Whet you bought it everything was ok in the shop? Or you haven't test it there?

I bought it off eBay :p

[Dynash]

Okay, copied all the files off the HD onto my C drive, formatted it with the NFTS file system, still doesn't work. It shows up in safely remove hardware, and inside my device manager like always. But it doesn't show in My Computer. It doesn't show at all in my Storage props in computer management either.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/javakrypt/usb2.png

[bariteau]

Can you post a screenshot of
Right click "My Computer"/"Computer" > Manage > Storage > Disk Management

[Dynash]

Can you post a screenshot of
Right click "My Computer"/"Computer" > Manage > Storage > Disk Management
Will do later, it doesn't exist though. All it shows is C, then E,F,G,H which are my SD card readers etc. I'll show you what I have now in windows 7 (The D drive is the drive I am trying to get to work. I thought I'd just install Windows 7 for a test run. It works fine when it is inside my computer, just not in the USB connector.)

Disk1 is the disk that doesn't exist in XP.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/javakrypt/disk.png

[bariteau]

If it doesn't work properly on the 3 OS, you might have a faulty Adapter

[Dynash]

The thing is, it loads and notices that it is a harddrive through a USB connector in XP and Vista. It loads the drivers and tells me it is ready for use. It shows in the Device Managers', but it just doesn't list under My computer (Only in Vista - but I can't open it) or in Disk management.

[LSComputers]

Hum, thats a weird one you got there Dynash. May I recommend trying to plug it into the computer itself. And see if you get anywhere. Then you can rule out the external wires your using.

[WL-Michael]

Yeh, I'd def get ready to give it a spin in Linux now. If you have a spare usb drive you can use that to boot into a live distro, the DL isn't ungodly huge either, give puppy linux a shot.

Just about sure that it'll be able to recognize the RAW data somehow.

[Dynash]

Works perfectly in every computer when I connect them directly inside the computer through the cables. The cables themselves seem to work, the SATA one works - which has to be connected the same way, so I don't see why my IDE one isn't :o

I'll try another harddrive soon. But I don't see it making any differene since it works.

[LSComputers]

Hum, thats really weird, If it shows up when connected to the computer itself then yea, the drives healthy. Its possible the hard drive isn't getting enough power when connected externally, or maybe the external enclosure/system your using is faulty.

Let us know what happens. Personally I know I a cheap $5 cable from Tiger Direct that just plug into the drive (the IDE/SATA and Power) however it never showed up on my desktop, when I picked up a $5 enclosure it worked. Maybe its a similar problem for you??

[Dynash]

I'm using the normal power supply that came with it. The only thing I changed was the plug itself because it wasn't English. So I used my plug off my printer instead. I'll try another plug when I get my hands on one. I never thought about that, thanks :)

http://www.orangemega.com/o.limit/IDE_SATA_to_USB_Adapter/IDE_SATA_to_USB_Adapter_g.jpg

[LSComputers]

Yep, thats the exact same system I used and had problems with it. I had to go to an actually enclosure that had an different way of working for it to run properly.

Hopefully an different power adapter will work for you.

[bariteau]

Ohh, that one, I had the same at one point and the power supply blew one of my HDD, I would suggest being careful with this.

[Dynash]

Hmm, guess I'll buy a proper enclosure for it. I have some here already, but they are 2.5" and not 3.5", shame. Thanks for the help :)

[LSComputers]

:) Let us know how you make out.

[Dynash]

Just an update on this. I got it to work :D

I did more Googling and the cables/power etc was fine, but because I had it plugged into MacOSX then into Windows I confused the firmware on the disk, causing it to corrupt. So I had to FORCE it to reset by pulling the cable out whilst making it do an action (Populating the disk for example). I got a few BSOD's from it but now the disk shows up like it should in my computer, Device manager and local disk management :)

[Patrick]

Glad you got it working! :)