USB external hard drive

[bbolte]

i bought a usb external enclosure for an extra hard drive i had. it's usb 2 (the enclosure). i'm running winxp sp2, 1.8 ghz cpu, i gb ram.

I'm having troubles getting Windows XP to see the drive. I put an 8 GB HD in it that I had. It seems like XP hangs when it tries to load it. After plugging it in, power up, I get a beep from the OS, briefly see a new drive letter (H in this case), which quickly disappears and then the "Safe to Remove" icon shows in the system tray. I've tried 2 different USB cables wondering if that was the problem with same results.

Note that on the initial plug in (first time), it did this several times and then said that Windows needed restarted, but the OS hung when attempting the restart. I also tried installing the drivers from the disc to see if that made a difference - even though the manual said it wasn't necessary with XP.

anyone have any ideas?

[cawebdevelopment]

Did you set hard drive to master and put the ribbon cable in right way?

[bbolte]

yeah. checked all that. i tried all 3 settings on the drive, hoping one would get it, but they all acted the same.

[MG315]

i have a maxtor external one-touch drive with both firewire and usb. when i have it connected with firewire it acts like a normal drive (always accessible), but when i use the usb it only lasts for like 30 min of inactivity (if i'm not using it for 30 min, it becomes inaccessible) and i hafta unplug it and plug it back in.

maybe it's a usb thing. i just use firewire

[bbolte]

hmmm. intereting. it didn't come with the fireware cable, but it says that it can use it. maybe i'll have to find one and try it out. thanks.

[bbolte]

finally figured it out. really stupid of me.

i stuck it on my wife's machine and it loaded right up. it was an old drive from my previous computer (that is now my daughter's). i had named this drive the same as one of the drive's on my new computer.



i reformatted it on my wife's and it launches perfectly. thanks for the help guys.

[DaveMichaels]

i bought a usb external enclosure for an extra hard drive i had. it's usb 2 (the enclosure).

Where did you buy it?

[bbolte]

from newegg.com. it was like $25-29 or something. special that day so it was an impulse buy.

[Hartmann]

Yeah, buying the enclosure and a hard drive to go with it is usually cheaper than buying a ready made external.

Glad to hear you got it working!

[bbolte]

it works ok. i was backing up some files to it last night and it would seem to stall out towards the end of a long copy process if it got around the 15 minute mark or so. but for quick hits it worked fine. i'll have to do some digging and see what's going on there.

[bbolte]

forgive as i'm not an expert (or even close) on hardware. could the drive speed and/or cache be a factor here? this is an old drive, probably 6-7 years old. i was just going to use it to decide if i like this set up or if i should buy a ready made external. plus i had it and it wasn't being used.

[Hartmann]

The cache and speed can be a huge factor. Your best bet may be to just buy a new harddrive and put it inside the enclosure.

[bbolte]

that's what i was thinking. but at least i know it works. now to convice the wife i need to spend some more $$$...

[bbolte]

it also doesn't seem to like my SCSI Zip Drive. it won't load when it's on. strange...

[seanf]

i have a maxtor external one-touch drive with both firewire and usb. when i have it connected with firewire it acts like a normal drive (always accessible), but when i use the usb it only lasts for like 30 min of inactivity (if i'm not using it for 30 min, it becomes inaccessible) and i hafta unplug it and plug it back in

Sounds like a Power Management issue. Try opening the Device Manager (In XP: right-click My Computer and select > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager) then expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers group. Make sure the drive is connected and then find which USB node it is listed under. Right-click on the node, select Properties > Power Management and uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

Sean