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rsteglitz

3 Posts

92881

October 20th, 2006 21:00

SATA hard drive in USB enclosure not recognized by Windows XP

I recently bought a Seagate 320gb SATA hard drive and a Sabrent 3.5" USB 2.0 SATA aluminum enclosure so I can plug the drive into my computer with USB.
I turned on the drive and sounds like it's working - spinning sound, no clicking.  But I can't get windows to find it.  I went to the device manager and looked under drives, and only my primary hard drive and cd rom showed up there. 
I've restarted the computer and the drive several times, made sure the cables were plugged in snugly, tried different USB cables to plug into the enclosure, but I can't get anything to work.
Anyone have any ideas?
 
Matt
 

osprey4

4 Operator

 • 

34.2K Posts

October 20th, 2006 21:00

Matt:

Your system model would be what? (Very important detail)

rsteglitz

3 Posts

October 21st, 2006 09:00

Oops, meant to say in my message:
Dell Dimension 2400, three years old.   And I have Windows service pack 2, downloaded a year or so ago.  And the USB slots are working fine, just not for the hard drive. 
 
 

rsteglitz

3 Posts

October 28th, 2006 11:00

Ok,
I figured it out. The USB connection to the enclosure from the computer is not super tight, and it had to be wiggled around to actually connect. Everything works fine now.

Matt

osprey4

4 Operator

 • 

34.2K Posts

October 28th, 2006 12:00

Matt:

So I guess that means I can't count this under "problems solved by my brilliant troubleshooting abilities"?

No, seriously, glad the fix was that easy.

tompete

3 Posts

November 30th, 2006 03:00

OK, here's a tougher challenge (excuse me if this is a redundant post). ...
 
My 2400 Dimension running XP Home with SP 2 will show my new Seagate 160 GB in a Sabrent 3.5 HD SATA to USB Enclosure under the "Safely Remove Hardware" item but otherwise it doesn't show up elsewhere, i.e. under My Computer.
 
I've wiggled and tried various trouble shooting. You can hit "Populate" under the Remove Hardware and it will show the drive's capacity.
 
Same thing happens when I plug it into an HP laptop. Wiggling doesn't seem to help.
 
I thought it should be plug and play but will I have to crack the box and run the set up software and then put it in hte enclosure?
 
Any ideas? Thanks for any help.

rickmktg

11.9K Posts

November 30th, 2006 10:00


tompete wrote:
OK, here's a tougher challenge (excuse me if this is a redundant post). ...
 
My 2400 Dimension running XP Home with SP 2 will show my new Seagate 160 GB in a Sabrent 3.5 HD SATA to USB Enclosure under the "Safely Remove Hardware" item but otherwise it doesn't show up elsewhere, i.e. under My Computer.
 
I've wiggled and tried various trouble shooting. You can hit "Populate" under the Remove Hardware and it will show the drive's capacity.
 
Same thing happens when I plug it into an HP laptop. Wiggling doesn't seem to help.
 
I thought it should be plug and play but will I have to crack the box and run the set up software and then put it in hte enclosure?
 
Any ideas? Thanks for any help.

In the future, by using the Advanced Forum Search on the bottom of this page, you can quite easily find the answer to this often asked question.
 
You can wiggle until you break off the plug, but until you partition and format the drive in Windows' Disk Management, you're not going to see it in My Computer...

tompete

3 Posts

November 30th, 2006 13:00

Well, I was just kidding about the wiggling but I guess this means I crack the PC and set up the drive as SATA then pull it and put it in the USB enclosure.


There's no way to run Disk Management as USB, right?

rickmktg

11.9K Posts

November 30th, 2006 15:00


tompete wrote:
Well, I was just kidding about the wiggling but I guess this means I crack the PC and set up the drive as SATA then pull it and put it in the USB enclosure.


There's no way to run Disk Management as USB, right?
 
Wrong.  I wouldn't have suggested it if you couldn't do it.

tompete

3 Posts

November 30th, 2006 17:00

Actually, your response said run disk management but didn't mention whether it could be formatted with USB or if I had to open the box. I took it into work and our tech could not run Disk Management on it with his PC but I was able to do it from my PC.

Nonetheless, thanks much for your help and quick response. I appreciate it.

rickmktg

11.9K Posts

November 30th, 2006 18:00


tompete wrote:
Actually, your response said run disk management but didn't mention whether it could be formatted with USB or if I had to open the box. I took it into work and our tech could not run Disk Management on it with his PC but I was able to do it from my PC.

Nonetheless, thanks much for your help and quick response. I appreciate it.
If it had to be removed and installed, I would have said so.  :smileywink:
 
Glad it's all set.

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