External harddrive not being recognized properly...

[Bronxkid]

I recently bought a bytecc enclosure for a old 20gig harddrive I had laying around. I only did this because I still had data on the harddrive I wanted to save. Anyways, I connected it and I get the "safely remove hardware" icon in the right bottom corner of the screen but when I click on my computer it doesn't show up as another drive. The manual recommends that I may need to format the drive to get windows to recognize it but the purpose of buying the enclosure was to save the data I had on it. I tried add new hardware through windows w/ no luck. Any suggestions would be appreciated. THanks.

Edit: using win xp if that makes a difference. Think it was a maxtor or western dig harddrive.

Also, should it be set as master or slave? It's basically connected via usb so shouldn't it be master?

 

[Mik3y]

master means that your windows files are located on there, basically meaning your primary drive. since that external drive you have is for storage, then it should be set as secondary/slave. think of it this way...you cant have more than 1 master, but you can have a million slaves.

 

[Bronxkid]

Changing master to slave didn't solve the problem. However, I noted that the light on the Bytecc case is green when power is connected to harddrive and turned on but turnes red/orange when I plug it to the usb port in the computer. Is this supposed to happen?

 

[Bronxkid]

Anyone know if I have to format the drive to get it to work?

 

[Bleep]

did you read the directions you got with your interface? You will probably have to install mass storage device driver. Does your machine have usb2?

Bleep

 

[Bronxkid]

According to the manual, it says "the device will auto sense the speed of your usb port and adjust between 1.0 and 2.0." I think I have 2.0 though since my computer is relatively new. I installed the cd that came with it, and connected it like it says. The device is recognized because I get the icon for mass storage drive in the bottom right corner of the screen but it doesn't appear in my computer.

 

[MDE]

Right click My Computer and click Manage. Go to Disk Management and right click the drive, then Assign Drive Letter or something similar.

EDIT: Should be set as a master\single drive. If it's a WD you should remove the jumper or put it in horizontally.

 

[Bronxkid]

MDE,

I tried what you said. Under disk managment it showed the internal harddrive, dvddrive, burner, and another dvd drive (which I don't have - possibly virtual drive created by nero?). It didn't recognize the ext harddrive. I clicked refresh then it froze. I think it's something with the connection because when I power on the harddrive it has a green light on the case but as soon as i connect via usb to the computer it turns red. I'll try customer support of bytecc. Thanks to everyone that tried to help, I appreciate it.

 

[Pegun]

hey let me know too cuz im having the same problem.