Problems using external hard drive enclosure on XP system

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm wanting to transfer data from an IDE drive on an old system (Win 98
first edition, no USB ports, no CD writing, only 1.4 MB diskette!) to an XP
system.

I bought a simple USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure, hooked in the old drive, and
plugged it into a USB port on the XP system. It recognized the drive, and
then said that it was installed and ready for use. However, "My Computer"
could not access the drive. It froze and I had to do a hard reboot.

I tried playing with the jumpers (it had been set as a slave drive), but it
did not get any better. In fact, it ended up with the XP system not even
recognizing when I plugged in the USB enclosure. Instead, it effectively
prevented me from using the XP system (Task Manager, when called up, could
not shut down the "not responding" My Computer application). When I shut
down the USB enclosure and rebooted, my system seemed to work just fine.

I have restored my XP system to just before I tried this, so no harm done.

Any suggestions on how to make this work?

Thanks.

 

[JS]

You could install the W98 drive as a second internal drive (check the jumper
settings for both drives) and see if you/XP can get at the data that way.

JS

 

[Guest]

Thanks, but life is not nearly so simple. My XP PC already has primary and
secondary IDE drives off the first IDE mobo connection, and CD-ROM and DVD
R/W drives off the second IDE connection. If it matters, I have a Maxtor One
Touch II external USB drive that I sometimes plug into the system (have kept
that shut down for this exercise).

 

[Jerry]

Thanks, but life is not nearly so simple. My XP PC already has primary
and
secondary IDE drives off the first IDE mobo connection, and CD-ROM and DVD
R/W drives off the second IDE connection. If it matters, I have a Maxtor
One
Touch II external USB drive that I sometimes plug into the system (have
kept
that shut down for this exercise).

Actually it is that simple. You said you want to transfer the data off the
old 98 drive, just remove the cd or dvd or the 2nd hard drive temporarily
and install the win 98 disk. Why would that be so hard?

 

[DL]

It still is fairly simple, theres no need to actually fit the drive, simply
pull an ide connector & pwr off one of your ide devices and plug it into
your drive. Even if the drive is 'hanging' provided its clear of connections
it does no harm.

 

[JS]

As Jerry and DL mentioned it is simple and effective, done it many times,
just remember to make certain the drive does not touch any objects and is
not likely to move during the transfer process.

JS

 

[Guest]

Oh, I see what you're saying now. I was still in the mode of using the
external hard drive enclosure I bought, and plugging it into a USB port.
That way, I don't have to mess with opening my XP machine and disconnecting
one of the existing internal drives.

Is there any easy way of making the external hard drive enclosure work?

Thanks,

Daddy Schlich

 

[JS]

You could try a different USB port on your XP PC and see if that works.

JS

 

[Guest]

I did try more than one - a USB 2.0 port that I usually use for thumb drives,
a USB 1.1 port that normally isn't used, and a USB 2.0 port that I usually
use for my external Maxtor One Touch Drive. It didn't seem to make a
difference.

I also have another USB port I normally use for my printer, a 1.1 port I use
for NaturalPoint's TrackIR, and two 1.1 ports used to synchronize PDAs.

In fact, I don't think I have a USB port that I don't normally use for
something!!

And again, I don't know whether the jumper settings on the IDE drive should
matter if it's plugged into a USB port.

Thanks for thinking about this for me.

Daddy Schlich

 

[Lil' Dave]

All the external enclosures (USB and Firewire) I've fooled with required the
hard drive it enclosed be set to master (master alone in the case of a WD).
In the case of a WD, there are 3 jumper setting choices for that. No jumper
installed, or pins 3 and 5, or pins 4 and 6. The 2 latter are simply jumper
storage positions, they perform no electrical function in that position.
Dave

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Dave. While I did try the Maxtor drive jumpered to "master" as a
subsequent attempt, it was not that way initially. So it's possible that
that messed up later attempts. Maybe an inital attempt jumpered to master
after a System Restore will work. I know my Maxtor drive is fine because I
put it back on the old system.

And thanks for your observation about the WD drives. I had seen someone say
that taking off all the jumpers allowed their external hard drive enclosure
to work.

Fingers crossed.

Daddy Schlich

 

[Bullwinkle]

Oh, I see what you're saying now. I was still in the mode of using the
external hard drive enclosure I bought, and plugging it into a USB port.
That way, I don't have to mess with opening my XP machine and
disconnecting
one of the existing internal drives.

Is there any easy way of making the external hard drive enclosure work?

Thanks,

Daddy Schlich

It has to be connected to a USB 2 connection. The regular USB 1.1 will not
work.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. I hope to have time to try this again one night this
week after work.

Daddy Schlich

 

[Guest]

just wanted to update folks. Ended up returning the first HD enclosure in
return for a second enclosure of the same type - still did not work. Tried
enclosure with another IDE hard drive, jumped as Master. Success!!!

Finally, went back to first HDrive and jumpered it as Cable Select, rather
than Master or Slave, and it worked!

All the while, I temporarily attached the drives to an IDE cable attached to
the mobo to confirm that the drives themselves were still working.

Moral of the story - drive all the different jumper settings. I would
suggest starting as Master, and then trying Cable Select.

Thanks again to all for their suggestions.

Daddy Schlich

 

[wisteria rich]

i have winxp service pac 2, my usb port will no longer see my USB hard drive,
the flash drives work gr8. i see the hard drive in the device manager,
reloaded drivers, it said it loaded them. could the bios be not set up
right.?
thank you
rich

 

[Anna]

i have winxp service pac 2, my usb port will no longer see my USB hard
drive,
the flash drives work gr8. i see the hard drive in the device manager,
reloaded drivers, it said it loaded them. could the bios be not set up
right.?
thank you
rich

Why don't you remove that HDD from your USB external enclosure, install it
as a secondary (internal) HDD in your new system and see if you can access
its data that way? We'll assume the drive is detected in the BIOS. If the
system fails to boot with that HDD internally connected (and properly
configured) there's a good chance you may be dealing with a defective HDD.
So test out the disk with the HDD diagnostic utility that's generally
available from the disk's manufacturer.
Anna