So I recently got a External Hard Drive Enclosure. Put a hard drive I wasn't using it in and plan to use it as an external.

When I plugged it in and turned it on, XP came up with its normal automatically finding devices and whatnot. It also went ahead and supposedly installed it and it said "Your new device is installed and ready to use". Or whatever it usually says when your new "plug and play" device is in. I wasn't suprised it recognized it as it is just an external storage device.

However my problem is that it doesn't show up in My Computer and I can't figure out where it is or where to access it. Turning it off and turning it on doesn't do anything except it does make that "ding" noise that XP does when you unplug (turn off in my case) or plug in (turn on in my case) that the device is ready, or no longer attached to the computer. So it obviously is recognizing it but I don't understand why it isn't showing up in My Computer. Would it in any way mean that the hard drive is bad?

It also shows up under Disk Drives in the device mananger as "USB Device".

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Hello Maizon,

Is the external a 3.5" or the 1.8" drives? If it is the small drive does the case have it's own power supply. If the drive requires more than .5ma then the USB bus will not carry the load. Also make sure the drive is formatted...

LC

Hi Maizon,

It might also be that the drive hasn't been assigned a drive letter...

Right click on My Computer and select Manage. From here goto Disk Management.

You can do anything you need to in here.

*UPDATE 11:45 pm 6/8/07*

Ok, so I remembered that I had issues with the hard drive in the past. It used to give me a boot error (as I was running an OS off of it, but I thought i could reformat once i got it plugged it) and wouldn't start up. So I figured that one was dead, so I put in my one other hard drive that I have lying around.

The problem with the one i have in the enclosure now though is that it used to be sporadic booting up (again i'd like to format it eventually if it works for good) and sometimes go all the way through, othertime not. Would give me errors.

Ok so I guess i'm trying to make an external out of 2 rather problematic HDD which very well might be my problem. However the one I have in there now, the first time i turned it on it worked and i was able to access it however after about an hour of being on it froze my computer, I had to restart and for awhile the external would turn on (the lights say it was plugged into the usb and all of that) but the HDD wouldn't start. Just a moment ago the HDD actually started spinning though this time XP wasn't recognizing it. However now it just started making noises and stopped spinning on its own.

Any help would be great however I am thinking that I really just need to start with a new hard drive and that my problem is that both the hard drive i've been trying to work with are problematic and wont work. I do not think it is the enclosure as i did gain access to the 2nd drive at one point so the functions of the enclosure seem to be working fine. Its just the hdd that wont spin and what not.

Any insight is appreciated.

HI Mazion,

Honestly, if your trying to use 2 suspect hard drives in an external enclosure, I'd say "don't bother"

If the second hard drive that works / doesn't work (sporadic)...if it locks the computer up when it stops working - this is a rather serious problem and could possibly damage your current working internal drive(s).

My advice is to get a new drive for the external.
Busted hard drives are just that...busted.

Alright... well thank you so much for your help. I didn't realize that it could potentially even cause problems for my internal system.

I guess a new hard drive is the way to go.

Thanks much for the information and help GaRHaR!