Updated- Can I not format external HD via USB2 PCI card?????????

[mutated]

EDIT- PROblem solved

PART-1

One of my old PC has only USB 1 ports. So I went and bought a USB2 PCI card. I also bought 2 external enclosures and 2x 250GB HDs for the enclosures. I am using W2K on this particular PC. Anyway so I connected the new enclosure + new HDs to the USB2 PCI cards port. I see the HD under "disk management" but when I try "format" I always get "format failed" error. I thought maybe my HD was lemon so I tried the other enclosure and HD...I got the same error.

Then I connected the HD to the native USB1 port and they both formatted fine. Is it normal that USB2 PCI card port won't format the external HD?

PART-2

So I have both external HDs formatted. I connect one external HD to the native USB1 port and it shows up fine under "MY COMPUTER" as G: drive. Then while it is connected if
I attach the 2nd external HD to the second native USB1 port. It does not show under "MY COMPUTER". I get "Windows 2000 has finished installing the new device...do you want to restart?". Basically both show fine when connected on their own as G: and N: drives but if I try to have both connected at the same time then the one connected second does not show up under "MY COMPUTER" and causes the "Windows 2000 has finished installing the new device...do you want to restart?" message.

While both are connected if I look under eject device it shows as-

Stop Mass storage device G: and
Stop JM20xxx SATA,USB COMBO (no N: drive letter assigned)

On the other hand if I have one external HD enclosure connected and then I proceed to connect a Lacie external HD then it shows fine.

PART1 could be due to the generic USB2 PCI card which I will exchange tomorrow with a more expensive Belkin PCI card.

PART 2 of the problem is really confusing.

P.S- Interesting I connected the HD to the native USB1 port and transfered a 100Mb file and it took 2 minutes exactly. Then I connected the HD to the USB2 PCI card port and transferred the same file from the desktop and it also took exactly 2 minutes as well :-O So the USB2 PCI card is working at USB1 speed! What am I missing here?

The external enclosure I think is not the problem as when I connect it to my laptop which has native USB2 ports it transfers the files in 15 seconds.

 

[mutated]

Anyone? I am going nuts trying to work out what is normal and what is not

 

[mutated]

Edited

 

[mutated]

No suggestions? :-(

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, You may have to turn off the old USB1 before the new PCI will go to work. Maybe?
Luck, Jim

 

[pkrush]

Have you installed the latest service pack? I know XP didn't support USB 2 properly until SP1.

 

[mutated]

I have the latest service pack 4. From what I hear on USB discussion forums "ALI" chipset USB PCI cards have lot of problems. I am gonna exchange this one for a slightly expensive Belkin card and see what happens.

 

[mutated]

Replaced the card with a NEC chipset based card and all problems solved. The problem was not driver related as everything on my system was up to date. The problem was purely to do with the crappy "ALI" chipset USB2-PCI card.
So if anyone out there is looking to buy USB2 PCI expansion card then look for ones with NEC chipset and try to avoid "ALI" and "VIA" chipset ones.
That was the advice I got from USB discussion forums and my experience just backs the advice.
5 external HDs connected now and all working fine at the same time. I am able to format them as well via the NEC chipset USB2 PCI card

Thumbs up for NEC. Every product I have used from them has always been top notch. Love their DVD burner as well.