Windows XP not recognising external HDD enclosure/caddy.

Hi all.

My laptop died recently and I am trying to save the data on the hard-drive.
I bought a 2.5" SATA Hard drive USB enclosure which arrived today. I put the HD in and plugged it in. Windows said something like "Mass USB storage device; new hardware found" in the bottom right corner and then it showed this message about a minute later;

http://i38.tinypic.com/2a8qmhd.jpg

The HDD enclosure is not showing up in "My Computer" or "Disk managment", but it does sometimes show up in "Device managment" under USB controllers as a "USB mass stoage device" - however, it seems to disappear from the Device managment after about 1 minute of it being plugged in.

I have tried it on another PC also running Windows XP with the same result, it just shows up in Device managment for about a minute then disappears, and doesn't show up in my computer.

I don't really know how this is meant to work, but when I rightclick on the USB mass storage device in device managment and click on drivers, it says "No drivers are installed for this device.". The USB enclosure came with no drivers and it says in the manual that it doesn't need any with Windows XP.

Does anyone know how to get this drive to show up correctly in Windows XP so that I can save my data?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

When I added a new HD to my setup, Vista did not see it in "Computer" where the disks show at first. I was a little confused, but then I realized that it won't show up till you put a partition on it. So I went into Computer Management and Disk Management and created a new volume. After that it showed up, and I could format it and so on. This was in internal HD though, not sure if your situation would be different...

If you're on Xp, you can load the Xp disk and create a partition there also, and then reboot and format as usual

 

I can't even see the drive in disk management so I can't create a partition.

I have a feeling it's something to do with the message; "A problem occurred during a hardware installation. Your new hardware might not work properly."

I have searched the net for hours with no cure to this problem. I can see it in device manager as a USB mass storage device but that's it.

 

Can you test it on another 1 or 2 PCs? If you get the same results then I think it is time for an RMA.

 

I tried it on two other PC's with exactly the same problem. I contacted the supplier of the enclosure and he said it sounds like a faulty PCB board. He is sending me a new one and I should recieve it tomorrow.

I'm pretty certain it's either the enclosure that's faulty or the HDD is dead. I guess I should hopefully find out tomorrow.

 

Let us know.

 

I had this happen to me.
My customer has installed the "slave" "master" pin backwards/upside down? so the connector wasn't making good contact with the pins. I took the little connector off and turned it the right way and BAM it worked fine.
I know it seems wierd but we tried everything until I noticed that in trying to grab that connector the little indents for grabbing them weren't there.
Other hard drives worked, just not that one -
Until I turned that the correct way.

I even turned it back the wrong way to prove it to him !

Jimbo

 

I've seen that mentioned a few times about changing the jumper configuration, but I can't seem to see any pins with jumpers on the hard drive.
Is that only on ATA drives or something?

 

Correct. SATA does not require jumpers, master\slave configuration.

Jimbo007 probably missed the reference to SATA, or has never dealt with them. I, on first reading of your post missed it as well.

 

Ah ok, thanks.

The new PCB board didn't arrive today for some reason. I will let you know when it arrives.

By the way, is there any other way to try out this HDD? Is it possible to plug it into a desktop PC and try it out without an enclosure?

 

If the desktop mobo supports SATA then yes you can. There is another possibility. You may have a corrupted MFT (Master File Table = basically a OS software failure). But before you look into repairing it try it on another PC that supports SATA.

Without knowing just what you mean by "died" concerning your laptop it is a little difficult to give other suggestions.

 

I spilt about 3/4 pint of water on the laptop while it was on and it turned itself off and hasn't booted up since (this was about 2 weeks ago now). I took the laptop apart as quick as I could and put it into the airing cupboard for a few days but it's never booted since.
The HDD did not get wet though and I can hear it bootup/spin when it's inside the enclosure.

I have tried the enclosure on 3 different PC's now with the same result so I think that rules out a problem with Windows.
The PC that I am typing on right now does support SATA but it's using an ATA drive.
How do I plug this laptop HDD into the PC? I take it i'll need to buy a SATA cable?

 

Yep, a SATA cable will be required. Then turn off the PC, open up the case, plug in the SATA and a power supply connector, restart the PC. If the hdd or MFT are not damaged then it should be detected, installed and accessible through Explorer.

 

Could it have anything to do with a bios setting where something relating to drives sata/ide be set set to autodetect or similar?

You could have a look at the link below which is about building a pc but has some pointers on the bios setup for drive detection.
Build a PC

 

Thanks for the help guys.

I am now 95% sure the HDD is dead.

I found a SATA data cable in my motherboard box and plugged the drive into the PSU, etc.
Nothing showed up at all, not in the BIOS or Windows. The SATA controller is definitely enabled in the BIOS.

I then tried out my brothers work laptop HDD (also SATA) in the PC using the same method and it worked fine. It showed up in the BIOS and Windows.

I then put my HDD into his laptop and it didn't detect it at all.

Thanks for your help anyway.

 

Looks like the hdd took a short when the laptop got a drink. I guess it is still possible the MFT is corrupt but it does seem more and more like a hardware failure.

 

Another couple of possibilities:

Enter BIOS and make sure all USB is enabled

If there is a switch on the external enclosure-you will have to activate it BEFORE turning on the computer,as IDE doesnt support hot plugging-only RAID and AHCI does.

Similarly,the drive must be plugged in prior to starting

 

i have exactly the same problem, i'm going to try it out in a windows computer to see how it goes on that. i've got one month before support stops for my main distro and have to get it working by!

i found these links -
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=77350
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=79201

 

Check in the Control Panel whether the USB controllers are working OK.

Go to Start-Settings-Control Panel-System- Hardware -Device Manager and USB Controllers.

If any are indicated as not working update drivers using the Windows disk.