Hard drives won't be detected at all after plugging them into Win XP with no USB support (no SP1 or

[erricbudiono]

I just reformatted my PC with an early edition of Windows XP Pro with
no Service Packs at all (yet). I haven't reinstalled any drivers yet
as I accidetally misplaced my mainboard CD.
Then I plugged in my external hard drive (300 GB using an external
enclosure) and it was not detected by the first version of Windows XP
that had no support for USB nor USB 2.0, the external drive didn't
show up, which was understandable.
The problem is, when I plugged the external hard drive in to a laptop
with Windows XP SP2, it wouldn't show up either. The USB 2.0 from the
external enclosure could be detected but the hard drive wouldn't show
up. Then I removed the 300 GB hard drive and inserted a 200 GB hard
drive for a test, and it showed up just fine. I thought the 300 GB
just went bad thus unable to be detected by the laptop. But out of
curiosity I went back to my PC with the original version of XP Pro I
just installed and I hooked up the external enclose with a 200 GB disk
and of course it wouldn't show as the USB support was still missing on
the PC. Then I went back to this laptop and hooked up the 200 GB disk
on the external enclosure to it and same thing happened, it wouldn't
show despite the USB 2.0 being detected by the laptop but not the hard
drive. Did I just blow 2 of my HDs away just by doing that? I don't
think I did but how can I make them detected again?

I may have to finish my installation of Windows XP on my PC to include
all drivers and especially in this case the SP 1 and 2 but will it
make the hard drives detectable again, given that they don't show on
this laptop with a fully functioning copy WIndows XP SP2? Or is this
problem a computer specific issue that maybe my 2 hard drives are
being locked to my PC that only the PC can get them back alive, not
the laptop or any other computer?

Please help, I have too much back up data to lose on the 2 hard
drives, and my guts say they can't have been ruined by such simple
process, no hardware intervention or anything that could render them
useless...

Thanks so much for any assistance on this...

-erric

 

[Erric]

Any advice please? I really need it, can't afford to lose the 2 hard
drives with all the files in them.

Thanks,
-erric

 

[dobey]

Download the chipset drivers and install them to your fresh install.
Download SP2 and install it.

You could try removing the drives and hooking them up internally to the
desktop.
Can you see the USB drives in device manager. They may just need to be
assigned a drive letter.

Have you used external drives with the laptop before.

Why do you think the drives may have gone bad. Can you not feel them spin
up?



You won't lose the files. What type of disk in in the external