External drive not assigned a drive letter in XP

[baaj]

I've spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get this work to no avail, so hopefully some of you guys can help!

OK, here the deal - I took a working drive out of an old laptop and installed it in a enclosure box to connect it to another computer over USB. The box works (tested with another drive). The problem drive spins, appears in device manager, and the Safely Remove Hardware, but does not appear in My Computer or in Disk Management.

In Device Manager the drive's name appears as "IC2uNp4p ATMR0t-p ````USB Device" which makes me think that the label of the drive includes Chinese characters (as the laptop had a Chinese version of XP installed). The system(s) I've tried to get it to work with are both English (Win 7 & XP SP3). Could this be the reason why it's not mounting? Is there any way to force a label change, without actually being able to mount the drive?

 

[corkyg]

Why not reformat the drive and give it a new label?

 

[baaj]

Sorry, forgot to mention that I need to recover some data from the old drive

 

[C1]

There is an outside chance that the physical drive (being older) wont run well in an external enclosure because it requires too much current (eg, 0.6 amp or even more). Are you using a single USB cable? If so use a very short high quality one (eg, 10" length) or better yet use a split "Y" cable that employs separate connectors (one for power & data and another for ancillary power).

 

[baaj]

Good question - the enclosure actually has an additional cable which connects to a PS/2 port. I assume this provides supplemental power,

 

[Maverick6969]

Good question - the enclosure actually has an additional cable which connects to a PS/2 port. I assume this provides supplemental power,

What in the world are you talking about. I have never seen an external drive enclosure that hooks up to a ps/2 port.

 

[baaj]

Weird, huh? It was something I picked when my laptop died in China about 5 years ago. It has served me well through the years.

Just to be clear - the connection is still USB, but it has an additional plug for the PS/2. It seems to work fine without that, but your comment above sounds like the reason for the need for additional power. Remember that this was back when ps/2 ports were much more common.

My Chinese isn't great so I cant find the exact model, but here's a thread with a similar device. Note the additional port on the back - this is what connects to the ps/2 port.

http://www.nrcce.com/nrcce_bbs/viewthread.php?tid=4675&extra=page%3D8

So in the absence of a system that can handle chinese characters, it appears like i'm out of luck, yes? No bootable DOS solutions, or the like?

 

[RebateMonger]

Remove the disk from the housing and either connect it (internally) directly to the PC as a secondary disk or get a SATA/IDE-to-USB adapter cable for ten to twenty bucks. Those all come with their own power supplies.