External HDD not spinning up

[moid]

Bought a new 250GB SATAII Samsung HDD (+ external caddy) as an Xmas pressy.

Put the drive directly into my PC to format (which went fine) and the drive worked.

However, the drive doesn't seem to be getting enough power to spin up fully when in the external caddy. It will start to slowly spin up after being connected for a few mins (just sits ideal to begin with) but never gets fast enough that it is recognised by the PC.

Any ideas what I could try? I've re-connected each connection a hundred times and the drive works in the PC on its own.

 

[rpstewart]

Can you give us a few more details:

Is this a 3.5" desktop HDD?

What caddy are you using?

What's the interface back to the PC - USB2, Firewire, eSATA?

Is the external power supply correctly connected?

 

[tres]

so the second you plug the USB (i presume) into the PC, it doesn't come up with a USB connected noise, or a prompt about anything USB related?

 

[moid]

Bit more info:

- HDD is 250GB Samsung HD250HJ Spinpoint SATAII (3.5")
- Caddy is a Enermax Laureate EB305C-B
- Connection is USB2 from caddy to PC
- Power is connected correctly.

When I turn the HDD caddy on I get the following:
- HDD caddy light comes on
- HDD makes some very quiet noises
- 30 seconds later (literally this long) the HDD will begin to spin up (although it doesn't seem to get to full speed)
- nothing else happens - no PC prompt ("new hardware detected" etc) and cannot find the drive within windows.

When I took the HDD out of the caddy and put it directly into the PC it worked fine.
It sounds like a power problem to me (i.e. HDD not getting enough juice to spin up fully). Do you think it could just be a faulty caddy?

 

[tres]

By the sounds of it, yeah - if the hard drive works, and the PC works, but not showing any updates in Device Manager when it's plugged in, sounds like a dodgy caddy