Removable Hard Drive?

[Hymer]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of
enclosure that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive.
The hard drive connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both
data and power. Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the
outside of the enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently
bought a new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the
motherboard. But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same
cables, the drive is not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures
(same drive) and neither enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Anna]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of enclosure
that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive. The hard drive
connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both data and power.
Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the > outside of the
enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently bought a
new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the motherboard.
But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same cables, the drive is
not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures (same drive) and neither
enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Thanks,

Bob

Bob:
It's hard to believe both removable hard drive mobile racks became
simultaneously defective, so we'll discount that possibility at least at the
outset.

First of all, I assume both mobile racks are the same make & model and
they're designed for PATA HDDs, not SATA HDDs. That correct?

So what happens when you install your "old" HDD in each of the mobile racks?
Works without a problem in each as it always did? What?

Are you using the new HDD as a secondary HDD for storage/backup? I assume
you've partitioned & formatted it since you say you've installed it as a
fixed, internal HDD and it "works fine", right? You're able to access the
drive and read from & write to it, yes?

Generally speaking installation of a PATA HDD in the removable tray of the
mobile rack is a straightforward operation. Basically two simple connections
of the power & data cables. I'm assuming you've correctly jumpered the
drive.
Anna

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of
enclosure that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive.
The hard drive connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both
data and power. Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the
outside of the enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently
bought a new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the
motherboard. But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same
cables, the drive is not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures
(same drive) and neither enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Are the enclosures IDE and are they using 40 pin cables or is the inside
of the enclosures using 40 pin cables? A lot of the newer IDE drives
will only work correctly with 80 pin cables.

 

[Hymer]

Bob:
It's hard to believe both removable hard drive mobile racks became
simultaneously defective, so we'll discount that possibility at
least at the outset.

First of all, I assume both mobile racks are the same make & model
and they're designed for PATA HDDs, not SATA HDDs. That correct?

So what happens when you install your "old" HDD in each of the
mobile racks? Works without a problem in each as it always did?
What?

Are you using the new HDD as a secondary HDD for storage/backup? I
assume you've partitioned & formatted it since you say you've
installed it as a fixed, internal HDD and it "works fine", right?
You're able to access the drive and read from & write to it, yes?

Generally speaking installation of a PATA HDD in the removable tray
of the mobile rack is a straightforward operation. Basically two
simple connections of the power & data cables. I'm assuming you've
correctly jumpered the drive.
Anna

Hello Anna,

I know what you mean by it not being likely that both removable trays
would go bad. However, one tray was sitting there not used while the
second was being used. The previous owner might have had a problem
with the unused one and now the second one went bad. Just a thought.

The old hard drive that was in the removable tray had problems -
either not recognized or failed disk check. This was a data drive only
and I had a full backup so no problem. I bought a new replacement
drive and that is the one that does not like the removable tray. The
new drive is a Seagate 350 gig and is not a SATA and it is on an older
Athlon 3200 running WinXP SP2.

The new drive is formatted and being used right now. I simply mounted
it in an available fixed bay, formatted, copied files, and all is
well. I guess I would prefer to put it in the removable tray just
because I have it and it might be convenient at some point. But I
don't really have an immediate need for it.

So I have a perfectly working new drive that when I put it in the tray
and connect the very same cables to the back will not work. It does
seem odd but it might be both removable trays.

What do you think? Anything I might try?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Hymer]

Are the enclosures IDE and are they using 40 pin cables or is the
inside of the enclosures using 40 pin cables? A lot of the newer
IDE drives will only work correctly with 80 pin cables.

It is an IDE connector with 40 pins inside and 40 pins outside. The
drive is setup as a slave to the primary and I am using the same cable
from the motherboard when using the removable enclosure and when
connecting directly. So I don't think it is my cable.

Bob

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

It is an IDE connector with 40 pins inside and 40 pins outside. The
drive is setup as a slave to the primary and I am using the same cable
from the motherboard when using the removable enclosure and when
connecting directly. So I don't think it is my cable.

Bob

Are you sure that the drive is working correctly? The reason I ask this
is I was helping a friend install a new drive in his computer and he
used the old 40 wire cable. The setup program that came with the disk
worked fine but when we went to install XP it kept coming up with
errors. After using the 80 wire cable with the drive everything worked
fine.
Having the extra connections when using the removable enclosure may be
enough to cause your problem with newer drives. I don't know if just
replacing the cable between the motherboard and the enclosure would be
enough to fix the problem or not, but it may be worth it if you have an
80 wire cable available.

 

[Anna]

Hello Anna,
I know what you mean by it not being likely that both removable trays
would go bad. However, one tray was sitting there not used while the >
second was being used. The previous owner might have had a problem with
the unused one and now the second one went bad. Just a thought.

The old hard drive that was in the removable tray had problems - either
not recognized or failed disk check. This was a data drive only and I had
a full backup so no problem. I bought a new replacement drive and that is
the one that does not like the removable tray. The new drive is a Seagate
350 gig and is not a SATA and it is on an older Athlon 3200 running WinXP
SP2.

The new drive is formatted and being used right now. I simply mounted it
in an available fixed bay, formatted, copied files, and all is well. I
guess I would prefer to put it in the removable tray just because I have
it and it might be convenient at some point. But I don't really have an
immediate need for it.

So I have a perfectly working new drive that when I put it in the tray and
connect the very same cables to the back will not work. It does seem odd
but it might be both removable trays.

What do you think? Anything I might try?

Thanks,

Bob

Bob:
Well, I suppose it's possible that both removable trays or the mobile rack
itself are defective, but based upon my experience working with hundreds of
removable HDDs in their mobile racks, it's something I ordinarily discount
when I receive a report that both removable HDDs became simultaneously
inoperable.

But since you say there was a "previous owner" and one of the trays was
unused, maybe so. But I'm still uncomfortable with that scenario.

Anyway, be that as it may...

If you've correctly connected/configured the HDD (both power & data cables)
in its mobile rack - I presume you've used the same IDE data cable and
connected it to the same IDE channel that you used to determine the HDD is
functional when similarly connected as an internal device - then there's
nothing left to do but either replace the mobile rack if you still desire a
removable HDD or leave it connected as a working HDD and be done with it.
Anna

 

[Whomever]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of enclosure
that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive. The hard drive
connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both data and power.
Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the outside of the
enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently bought a
new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the motherboard.
But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same cables, the drive is
not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures (same drive) and neither
enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Thanks,

Bob

I've been using a similar setup for years but I've found that the removable
trays don't last forever if you switch drives in and out of them. I've had
several go bad and it's obviously the very short ribbon cable and connector
that plug into the drive and then connect to what is usually a scsi 1 style
plug. If it's a Genica, you can get them at geeks.com.

 

[Hymer]

Are you sure that the drive is working correctly? The reason I ask
this is I was helping a friend install a new drive in his computer
and he used the old 40 wire cable. The setup program that came with
the disk worked fine but when we went to install XP it kept coming
up with errors. After using the 80 wire cable with the drive
everything worked fine.
Having the extra connections when using the removable enclosure may
be enough to cause your problem with newer drives. I don't know if
just replacing the cable between the motherboard and the enclosure
would be enough to fix the problem or not, but it may be worth it if
you have an 80 wire cable available.

I bought a new cable along with the drive. But I was wrong about
saying they were 80 pin connectors. Actually, the cable from the
motherboard is 40 pins, the connector outside the removable drive is
40 pins and the connector inside the removable drive is 40 pins. That
means that there are 40 pins going to the primary as well which has XP
on it.

I am not sure of the manufacturer of the enclosure. I have looked at a
lot of photos and can't seem to find it. It has an LCD display on the
front with a black front but aluminum housing.

Does this suggest something?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Hymer]

Bob:

Well, I suppose it's possible that both removable trays or the
mobile rack itself are defective, but based upon my experience
working with hundreds of removable HDDs in their mobile racks, it's
something I ordinarily discount when I receive a report that both
removable HDDs became simultaneously inoperable.

But since you say there was a "previous owner" and one of the trays
was unused, maybe so. But I'm still uncomfortable with that
scenario.

Anyway, be that as it may...

If you've correctly connected/configured the HDD (both power & data
cables) in its mobile rack - I presume you've used the same IDE data
cable and connected it to the same IDE channel that you used to
determine the HDD is functional when similarly connected as an
internal device - then there's nothing left to do but either replace
the mobile rack if you still desire a removable HDD or leave it
connected as a working HDD and be done with it.
Anna

Hi Anna,

Someone else mentioned the number of connectors in the cable. I
previously said there were 80 but that was wrong. My cable from the MB
and the removable enclosure are all 40 pin. I don't know if that is a
problem but it was working with 40 pins prior to my drive problem.

I guess I will have to punt and assume that the enclosures are faulty.

Thanks again Anna,

Bob

 

[NoConsequence]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of
enclosure that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive.
The hard drive connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both
data and power. Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the
outside of the enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently
bought a new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the
motherboard. But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same
cables, the drive is not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures
(same drive) and neither enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Thanks,

Bob

And this has what to do with XP?

Ask elsewhere.

 

[JohnO]

Ask elsewhere.

A ridiculous assertion given that the thread is already several messages
long...

 

[Anna]

Hi Anna,

Someone else mentioned the number of connectors in the cable. I previously
said there were 80 but that was wrong. My cable from the MB and the
removable enclosure are all 40 pin. I don't know if that is a problem but
it was working with 40 pins prior to my drive problem.

I guess I will have to punt and assume that the enclosures are faulty.

Thanks again Anna,

Bob

Bob:
*All* PC desktop IDE signal (data) cables that are used to connect HDDs and
optical drives are 40-pins. But some IDE cables that are still
(unfortunately) packaged with many optical drives are the 40-wire kind,
instead of the more desirable 80-wire kind that should be used for HDD
connections (and, as far as we're concerned, for optical drives as well).

So I'm unsure as to whether that's what you're referring to with respect to
your IDE cables. In any case do ensure that you're working with the 80-wire
(40 pins) variety.
Anna

 

[Hymer]

Bob:
*All* PC desktop IDE signal (data) cables that are used to connect
HDDs and optical drives are 40-pins. But some IDE cables that are
still (unfortunately) packaged with many optical drives are the
40-wire kind, instead of the more desirable 80-wire kind that should
be used for HDD connections (and, as far as we're concerned, for
optical drives as well).

So I'm unsure as to whether that's what you're referring to with
respect to your IDE cables. In any case do ensure that you're
working with the 80-wire (40 pins) variety.

I didn't realize that the number of wires was different from the
number of pins. I have 40 pins / 80 wires for all the connections.

I guess I am back to bad removable enclosures.

Bob

 

[Noncompliant]

Hello,

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of enclosure
that has a case that holds a container for the hard drive. The hard drive
connects to the inside rear wall of the container, both data and power.
Then the cable from the motherboard connects to the outside of the
enclosure as does the power connector.

One of the enclosures worked for a long time. However, I recently bought a
new hard drive that works fine when attached directly to the motherboard.
But when I place it in the enclosure, using the same cables, the drive is
not recognized. I tried this with both enclosures (same drive) and neither
enclosure worked.

Could it be that the cabling inside both enclosures is bad or do I not
understand something about hooking-up a drive using the enclosures?

Thanks,

Bob

I have an older KingWin ide rack and enclosure. The rack has jumpers on it.
They must be set in reference to how the ide device is setup jumpered as
master or slave to work properly. If the hard drive you added is Western
Digital, try removing the single jumper entirely or jumpering either 6-4 or
5-3, if you have no other ide device on the same ribbon cable.

Some recent hard drives simply won't work with 40 wire ribbon cables. Some,
the PC will adjust the timing to a slower setting. The rack that holds the
enclosure also has a ribbon cable internally. Most are 40 wire, some are 80
wire.

 

[Hymer]

I have two removable hard drive enclosures. This is the type of

Bob:
Well, I suppose it's possible that both removable trays or the
mobile rack itself are defective, but based upon my experience
working with hundreds of removable HDDs in their mobile racks, it's
something I ordinarily discount when I receive a report that both
removable HDDs became simultaneously inoperable.

But since you say there was a "previous owner" and one of the trays
was unused, maybe so. But I'm still uncomfortable with that
scenario.

Anyway, be that as it may...

If you've correctly connected/configured the HDD (both power & data
cables) in its mobile rack - I presume you've used the same IDE data
cable and connected it to the same IDE channel that you used to
determine the HDD is functional when similarly connected as an
internal device - then there's nothing left to do but either replace
the mobile rack if you still desire a removable HDD or leave it
connected as a working HDD and be done with it.
Anna

Hello Anna and Everyone,

Thank you so much for all your help. I feel stupid but I did figure
out the problem.

The reason the removable enclosures did not appear to work had to do
with the key lock (which I did not mention). The enclosure had to be
locked with the key in order for it to work at all. Both enclosures
work fine when locked.

The drive in question was bad as expected and the new drive is now
working fine in the removable enclosure.

Thanks again for taking the time on this. I did learn a lot through
the process.

Bob

 

[Anna]

Hello Anna and Everyone,

Thank you so much for all your help. I feel stupid but I did figure out
the problem.

The reason the removable enclosures did not appear to work had to do with
the key lock (which I did not mention). The enclosure had to be locked
with the key in order for it to work at all. Both enclosures work fine
when locked.

The drive in question was bad as expected and the new drive is now working
fine in the removable enclosure.

Thanks again for taking the time on this. I did learn a lot through the
process.

Bob

Bob:
Just out of curiosity...
Do you know the make & model of your removable HDD mobile racks?
Anna

P. S.
Most removable HDD (mobile rack devices) are equipped with an On-Off
keylock. In our business we've always found using the key to turn the device
on or off annoying (although effective!) because we're continually
installing/uninstalling the hard drives in the removable trays (caddies). So
we've been on the lookout for mobile racks which do not employ a keylock but
contain some sort of On-Off capability.

For about the past two years we've been using the Athena Power MR-125 models
(they come in beige & black) - see
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817123302
to house our SATA HDDs. (Athena Power did produce a similar model for PATA
HDDs but I'm not sure if they're still manufacturing them).

Even though they're all-plastic they've stood up quite well given the heavy
use we & others give them. They're equipped with an 80 mm bottom-mounted fan
that's virtually silent - a nice feature. And they're quite inexpensive to
boot.

We particularly like them because they don't use a keylock for the On-Off
mechanism - rather a simple lever device when inserting or removing the
removable tray from the desktop PC. We find it quite effective and quick &
simple to use.

Thought I would mention this in case anyone is contemplating purchasing a
mobile rack to house removable HDDs.
Anna

 

[Hymer]

Bob:
Just out of curiosity...
Do you know the make & model of your removable HDD mobile racks?
Anna

P. S.
Most removable HDD (mobile rack devices) are equipped with an On-Off
keylock. In our business we've always found using the key to turn
the device on or off annoying (although effective!) because we're
continually installing/uninstalling the hard drives in the removable
trays (caddies). So we've been on the lookout for mobile racks which
do not employ a keylock but contain some sort of On-Off capability.

For about the past two years we've been using the Athena Power
MR-125 models (they come in beige & black) - see
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817123302
to house our SATA HDDs. (Athena Power did produce a similar model
for PATA HDDs but I'm not sure if they're still manufacturing them).

Even though they're all-plastic they've stood up quite well given
the heavy use we & others give them. They're equipped with an 80 mm
bottom-mounted fan that's virtually silent - a nice feature. And
they're quite inexpensive to boot.

We particularly like them because they don't use a keylock for the
On-Off mechanism - rather a simple lever device when inserting or
removing the removable tray from the desktop PC. We find it quite
effective and quick & simple to use.

Thought I would mention this in case anyone is contemplating
purchasing a mobile rack to house removable HDDs.
Anna

Hello Anna,

I don't know the manufacturer of the removable enclosure. No name on
the tray or housing. I have looked at hundreds of photos and have
never seen it. It seems to be a very nice enclosure. The face has a
blue LCD screen 1 1/4" x 1/4" that shows the temperature and revs/min.
There are four very small buttons on the front: mode, set, reset, and
C vs. F for temperature. The face is black plastic but everything else
is aluminum. I feels heavy and substantial.

There is no on/off switch. Rather, the key itself turns it on and off.
So if you want to remove the drive, you are forced to turn it off
because the key permits the tray to be removed. Also, it has a large
fan on the bottom of the housing.

So it sounds a lot like yours in function but it does look different.

Bob

 

[Hymer]

Hello Anna,

I don't know the manufacturer of the removable enclosure. No name on
the tray or housing. I have looked at hundreds of photos and have
never seen it. It seems to be a very nice enclosure. The face has a
blue LCD screen 1 1/4" x 1/4" that shows the temperature and
revs/min. There are four very small buttons on the front: mode, set,
reset, and C vs. F for temperature. The face is black plastic but
everything else is aluminum. I feels heavy and substantial.

There is no on/off switch. Rather, the key itself turns it on and
off. So if you want to remove the drive, you are forced to turn it
off because the key permits the tray to be removed. Also, it has a
large fan on the bottom of the housing.

So it sounds a lot like yours in function but it does look
different.

Bob

Hello Again Anna,

I notice that my removable drive is not hot swappable. I have to
reboot to make it work. When I try to hot swap the computer goes crazy
and just keeps running. Is there something I am missing?

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Anna]

Hello Again Anna,

I notice that my removable drive is not hot swappable. I have to reboot to
make it work. When I try to hot swap the computer goes crazy and just
keeps running. Is there something I am missing?

Thanks,

Bob

No, you're not "missing" anything. As I recall you're working with PATA HDDs
and they're not designed to be "hot-swappable" (hot-pluggable)
nothwithstanding the fact they're functioning as removable hard drives in a
mobile rack. There have been some software programs in the past supposedly
designed to create this capability for removable PATA HDDs but we never
found them to be reliable and haven't worked with them in years.

BTW, there is a real & present danger of a "loss or corruption of data"
problem when connecting/disconnecting PATA HDDs to & from a running system.
I would be very cautious about this if I were you. We have even received
reports from a few users that their drives became defective as a result,
however, we've never experienced *that* particular problem - at least none
that I can remember.

On the other hand, SATA HDDs *are* (for the most part) designed to be "hot
swappable" - "hot-pluggable" assuming that capability is present in the
drive itself, e.g., SATA-II drives, as well as supported by the motherboard.
So that's another significant advantage to using removable HDDs (SATA) in
that you can use a secondary SATA removable HDD just like a USB external
HDD - connecting/disconnecting to & from a running system - but with the
added advantage that the operating system will treat the SATA HDD as an
*internal* HDD (should it contain the OS it will be bootable).
Anna