External USB Drive Woes

[phil]

Please excuse me if I say anything blindingly stupid as I am not up to
speed on computer stuff at the moment.
A friend gave me a Hitachi Deskstar 160g SATA drive. I bought an
external SATA-USB2.0 enclosure and assumed it would be more or less
plug&play. My computer doesn't recognize it at all and it seems to
freeze up when I turn on the external hard drive. I've tried it with
other computers and the same thing happens. The same friend gave me
another, smaller drive to try but the same thing is happening. I'm
running XP(upgraded from ME) but i haven't got the service packs yet
due to not being connected to the net. As far as I understand that
means that once I do get it working, I won't have access to the full
160gigs which I don't mind, but would it cause any other problems?
Help please!!!

 

[Rod Speed]

Please excuse me if I say anything blindingly stupid as
I am not up to speed on computer stuff at the moment.

A friend gave me a Hitachi Deskstar 160g SATA drive. I bought an
external SATA-USB2.0 enclosure and assumed it would be more or less
plug&play. My computer doesn't recognize it at all and it seems to
freeze up when I turn on the external hard drive. I've tried it with
other computers and the same thing happens. The same friend gave me
another, smaller drive to try but the same thing is happening. I'm
running XP(upgraded from ME) but i haven't got the service packs yet
due to not being connected to the net. As far as I understand that
means that once I do get it working, I won't have access to the full
160gigs which I don't mind, but would it cause any other problems?

Yeah, there were upgrades to the USB2 support too.

That may well be your problem.

 

[WackySnoozy]

I believe the minimum you need to do is to download and install SP2 for
Windows XP. Also, in my opinion, a clean install of Win XP is much
better than doing an upgrade from Win ME as it would be much more
stable and remove the risks of having outdated drivers and dlls
residing in your PC.

 

[Rod Speed]

I believe the minimum you need to do is to
download and install SP2 for Windows XP.
Nope.

Also, in my opinion, a clean install of Win XP is
much better than doing an upgrade from Win ME
as it would be much more stable and remove the
risks of having outdated drivers and dlls residing in your PC.

That doesnt happen with an ME/XP upgrade, nothing
that was used in ME is used in XP except the settings etc.