Problems setting up external portable USB hard drive

[dexta]

Hi,

I recently purchased a T42 and so far things have been going swell. I upgraded the memory and I installed the 60GB 7200rpm hard drive (installed Windows with the recover CD properly too).

However the problem I am currently facing is that I want to use the other 40GB hard drive as an external USB storage drive. This is where the problem lies:
-it does not register on the USB devices now at all
(elaborating: initally the USB devices icon would register the hard drive, but I could not access it via Computer Management, and hence I could not format it)
-What do I do? I have spent the past 2 hours googling hundreds of sites for a solution.

Note:
I also changed my boot order.
I know silly me, and now I can not remember what the correct default boot order is. Can some one tell me what the default sequence is. I think this might be causing part of the problem.

Thanks in advance.

[Marc_G]

Hi Dexta-

Don't worry about the default boot sequence too much. For my part, I leave it at:
-USB HD (because I have USB flash key drives that register as HDs, and they have utilities like Partition Magic on them)
-CD
-USB Floppy
-Regular hard drive
-anything else.

Boot without the USB drive plugged in. Then, with Windows up, plug in the drive. You may see the drive recognized in the tray icon area, though in my experience that happens mostly just the first time Windows recognizes the drive. Give it a minute to attempt to mount. If it's not showing as a volume in My Computer, check in Disk Management.

It should show up in Device Manager under Disk Drives.

If you can't see it there, you probably have a hardware problem. Enclosures sometimes have power issues, since the drive can draw more than USB2 specifies. I haven't had this problem but I have heard others complain of this. Does the drive have just one cable, or two? Do you hear the drive spin up when plugged in?

Do other USB devices work OK on the computer?

Another thing to try is to put the drive in the primary position in the computer, boot from a CD or USB key and use partitioning tools like Partition Magic or even FDisk to format it. Swap back into the USB enclosure and see if it's picked up there.

Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

Marc

[dexta]

I do realize that the boot sequence should not affect anything, but I was just concerned that I may have done something wrong.

Other bits of information:
-When I have my USB hard drive plugged in @ startup the IBM screen just freezes (even when hd0 is set to boot up first).

Once Windows is up and running when I do try plugging in the drive the USB icon does not change or display any change. (It used to do this before).

It never did show up under the disk drives section but allways under the USB section in Device Manager.

The actual case has two cables, one for power and one for data. They recomed using bus power mode. I do hera the drive spinning up once it is powered up/plugged in.

I tried my USB flash disk it worked fine.

I have placed the 40GB hd in primary position and formatted it (NTFS) using the boot CD. The first time it worked. Now it does not seem to be working.

Thanks for the help. Greatly appreciated.

Dex

[Marc_G]

Dex-

Hmmm...

I'm watching my infant son this afternoon so I'm a bit scattered.

I wonder if there is some sort of driver conflict going on.

Which USB icon are you refering to when you say:

"when I do try plugging in the drive the USB icon does not change or display any change. (It used to do this before). "

I guess I'm not sure what icon you mean. I don't generally have some "usb icon" that changes when I plug in a USB device. This makes me think that perhaps you've got something running that is handling the USB ports that may be causing a conflict.

Have you tried a safe mode boot or a reduced services/startup items boot (via msconfig) and tried plugging the drive in once in that special environment?

If you plug it in with the computer unplugged, and upon power-on do an F12, does the device get properly recognized in the boot list? Not that you would boot from it, but just checking to make sure it is detected correctly.

To me it sounds like a software conflict, either something running in the background that's interfering with native USB2 support, or maybe something has crapped up the standard drivers. Have you considered uninstalling the USB drivers and letting the system redetect & reinstall the drivers?

I'm hoping others on the forum will pipe up. I find it very interesting that having the drive plugged in screws up the boot even when HD0 is set as the boot device. I don't have an explanation.

Keep us posted on your progress!

Marc

[mdarnton]

I had this problem with a similar situation. I solved it by pulling the jumper off the pins on the connectors on the end of the drive. The drive was from a Compaq, and I notice that my IBM drive--same brand and type--doesn't have a jumper on it. . . but if yours does, try taking it off. I was never curious enough to figure it out, once I got it working. :-)

[johniii]

Did you have a hard drive passward set on the drive you are trying to use? It must be removed it before it will work in the USB enclosure.

[dexta]

I formatted the hard drive (a few times to be sure). I am not sure I set a HD password. How do I check?

[Marc_G]

If it let you format, there's no password set.

Is it possible to try plugging the HD into another computer to see what happens? I'm thinking there is a USB conflict here.

Marc

[dexta]

I tried it on my other desktop computers and my powerbook. It was not recognized at all.

I also checked out the USBMassStorage.sys file and it specifies that the hd should have a serial number. My HD serial number is not showing up at all. Could this be the problem

EDIT:
For example my Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm shows up as: HTS726060M9AT00

The portable drive should have a similiar serial associated with it but it does not. It only shows up as DiskDrive in the Hardware panel. How do I set this? I hope I did not format this serial off.

[Marc_G]

Hmmm...

The odd thing is that you report the drive doesn't show up in the Admin Tools Storage utility. That's where I normally initialize the disk (create the signature). It should show up there if Windows sees it as a disk, though it won't let you format/partition/mount it until it's initialized.

Since none of the other computers can interact with it either, perhaps a hardware problem with the enclosure?

Marc