Problems with USB External HD

[Tom]

I have an external USB drive which consists of a WD 200GB
EIDE drive in an Ahanix D-Vine external case. Windows can
see the drive in the Disk Manager but when I tried to
partition and format it there, after a few minutes I got
the following error (at this point the partitioning was done):

The operation did not complete because the
partition/volume is not enabled. Please reboot
the computer to enable the partition/volume.

I have tried numerous other approaches and by removing the
drive, installing it internally in the system, and
partitioning and formatting using WD utilities I got it all
set up fine. If I leave it installed internally it works
properly and is usable, and the full 200GB is accessible.

However if I remove it and put it into the USB case then as
soon as I attempt to assign it a drive letter using Disk
Manager, I get the error shown above. Needless to say,
rebooting as suggested does not fix the problem.

I have both built-in USB 1.1 ports and an add-on PCI card
with USB 2.0 ports. The same error occurs regardless of
where the drive is connected.

I am only using this drive as additional storage, I don't
need to boot from it or anything like that. It is
formatted as a single 200 GB NTFS primary partition, though
I find that changing the partitioning seems to have no
effect -- no matter how I set it up, I get the error shown
above.

I can't find any information on this error in the
knowledgebase.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Tom

 

[Tom]

Forgot to mention, this is W2K build 2195 SP4.

 

[Geoffw]

Tom

I had a similar usb2.0 20gig drive on an older MB, while not
the same specific problems I could not get it to work at
all. (native 1.1 in MB with a 4 port add on gigabyte card)

Worked fine when I put up a new MB with native usb 2.0

you could try here (have not used for a while now and no
affiliation, helped solve a few usb probs I have had in the
past) www.usbman.com

good luck

Geoff

 

[Tom]

you could try here (have not used for a while now and no

affiliation, helped solve a few usb probs I have had in the
past) www.usbman.com

Thanks! I found that site on my own a little after posting
the message, and their solution worked. I disabled Plug
and Play in the BIOS and reinstalled Windows 2000 as an
upgrade in "Standard PC" rather than "ACPI" mode. I then
reinstalled SP4. Windows now sees the drive fine. Whether
it was the reinstall alone that did it, or the switch from
ACPI to Standard PC, I'll never know!

Tom