Help needed regarding External Caddys and old HDs

Zero5

Zero5

Zero5

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Joined
7 May 2003
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1,656
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On my own somewhere
Hello all,

I've decided to make use of the old hard drives in my now dead PC. I bought myself an external caddy and have installed the HDs as instructed. Upon plugging them into the computer I get the usual 'da-ding' from windows but no new drives show up. My initial thoughts were that I had the jumpers in the wrong positions but I've checked and I'm pretty sure they are correct. I've also restarted after a da-ding to see if it would find it then, checked in the drive management bit through My Computer and that's all I knew off the top of my head to try.

I've googled the problem but all I got back were unrelated problems, I have no idea how to get google to return more specific results.

The Hard drives in question are a Maxtor and a WD120. I'm half certain the Maxtor is a lost cause but the 120gb WD is in working condition and it would be great if I could retrieve the files from it.

Sorry for all the text, it's the best I can explain the situation without being asked specific questions.

Thank you for any help in advance.
 
I didn't spot any mention of whether your caddy is externally powered or if you were expecting power from USB so didn't want to assume the norm.
Sometimes the ding will be just to detect the USB controller in the caddy, so without power, you might only see a new or unknown USB device listed under Universal Serial Bus controllers in Device Manager, and not necessarily a Disk Drive... Just a thought...
 
Haha yeah, see this is what I need to give people all the info, questions to get past my inability to describe situations properly.

The caddy is powered externally.
 
That's quite a handy little program thank you.

Not sure what it means but I have one entry for a USB to IDE device plugged in today (first time at 3:15 then the most recent being 5 minutes ago). I have it plugged in at the moment but that program is saying it isn't along with the saying it isn't disabled. I jumped straight in and tried to enable it but nothing happened.

Thank you for all your help again. Sorry I'm so useless, especially seeing at I'm a member on a computer forum. :S
 
Did you look at under the 'Universal Serial Bus controllers' section of Device Manager to see any devices with yellow triangle exclamation mark next to them?
 
Zero5 said:
I've decided to make use of the old hard drives in my now dead PC.
Click to expand...
Before we go any further do you know if the old drives were configured as dynamic disks? If they were you're a bit stuck, you can't use a dynamic disk externally.

To rule out a problem with the caddy are you able to fit (or at least connect) the drives internally in your current PC?
 
Nanobot said:
Did you look at under the 'Universal Serial Bus controllers' section of Device Manager to see any devices with yellow triangle exclamation mark next to them?
Click to expand...

Yeah I checked that, no issues there.

rpstewart said:
Before we go any further do you know if the old drives were configured as dynamic disks? If they were you're a bit stuck, you can't use a dynamic disk externally.

To rule out a problem with the caddy are you able to fit (or at least connect) the drives internally in your current PC?
Click to expand...

Hmm that is something I don't know unfortunately. The old computer was a custom build but I didn't build it myself and my current PC is a laptop so I can't really put them in it.

How can I check if they are dynamic disks?
 
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