external USB drive

[Paul Hen]

I purchased a USB IDE drive housing and have installed a 60GB hard drive in it. I have set the drive jumper to slave. The power light comes on and the hard drive's "hum" can be felt, but it is not picked up as a device, even after refreshing device manager and rebooting. The "no name box" shows no manufacturer (but shows Win XP compliant) and the driver CD shown as included was not in the box. The retailer says there is nothing they can do and their distributor does not know/have a driver/source. Any ideas folks??

[merlin_2]

check the bios setup <del key on boot> does it show up in there?

[Paul Hen]

Hi Merlin,

Thanks for the reply. I checked but no, it does not appear. Although as a USB device I am not sure it would and if it did, I am not sure where one would see it in the BIOS. I checked all through the BIOS. I have also plugged this into a second computer with no better result. I am running XP SP2.

[merlin_2]

I would guess that you have plug and play <<<,enabled in the bios>>have another look....if its a newish pc most are set to plug and play......is this ide/usb.....on its own ide cable...or a double one?

[Paul Hen]

Hi - no, plug & play was not enabled on the machine it is currently connected to, so I enabled it just now. However, I do have other USB devices plugged in to a 4 way USB hub all of which work as did plug & play devices. In any case, it still does not work and does not show a new device message or anything. Plus, as I said, I tried it on another computer (newer) and connected directly to the USB connection with no change.

[merlin_2]

try disabling/removing  one of the usb devices thats plugged into the usb hub.......you may have exceeded the bandwidth.......and reboot pc then plug it in?or
have look here paul>>http://www.usbman.com/

[Raptor]

The HDD may need an additional power supply.

[Paul Hen]

Thanks for the replies. It does have its own power and it is working. I tried connecting directly to the PC USB port with only the mouse additional with no luck. Any other thoughts folks?

[Raptor]

I have never seen IDE to USB converter cradles, however, I have two suggestions:

1. Install the correct drivers
2. Try different jumper settings. Master, Cable Select or Factory default (sidewards or removed)

[Paul Hen]

Thanks for your input Raptor. As indicated early in the thread, I have no drivers and there is no mfr/model/FCC number on the unit. Given your post, I have tried all jumper settings and it made no difference.
1) should Win XP SP2 not pick up the USB controller as a device even if the drive is not working, jumpered incorrectly etc.?
2) given a USB device such as this I assume that it will only be picked up in Windows (not in DOS or the BIOS) and that no driver would be necessary?

[Fed]

Have you tried going through windows add/remove hardware to force detection?
There is a section in there that gives the option to 'show all' hardware which gives a long list to choose from.
If you can force detection, possibly the drivers for the device are in windows as it is supposed to be xp compliant. Idle thoughts here.  

[Paul Hen]

Thanks Fed,

I will try it if the retailer to whom I just returned it can't make it work. Unfortunately, I believe they sold me a returned unit and that is why the driver CD that the box said was inside was missing. I think I paid too much as well! Hopefully, it wasn't used at least - some of these computer retailers you need to be as wary of as the old stories about used car dealers!!

I would still welcome replies to my previous two questions if you or anyone has the insight:
1) should Win XP SP2 not pick up the USB controller as a device even if the drive is not working, jumpered incorrectly etc.?
2) given a USB device such as this I assume that it will only be picked up in Windows (not in DOS or the BIOS) and that no driver would be necessary?

Thanks.

[merlin_2]

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx

[ojas25]

You could try one more thing connect the drive to your USB port check if the draw will open if so go to right my computer on the desktop and go manage and to disk management and see if the drive is listed you should see all the disks that are connected to the computer if not there then the external drive is not connected correctly. If the draw will not open there is no power to the drive. If that all fails you have a faulty drive.