Drive Enclosures

Thanks for the info.

Martin

 

I just put a new hard drive into an external USB case, and when I furst turned it on, I got a message saying it had been found and was ready. However, there was no drive letter assigned and it was not accessable. I am running Windows XP SP2 and this is what I did to correct the problem:

To make the drive visible in My Computer or Windows Explorer, the disk will need to be initialized, partitioned and formatted. This can be done from the Windows Disk Management utility. To access Disk Management, right-click My Computer, select Manage and then select Disk Management. The top of the screen will display the information in a list style and the lower portion will be displayed in a bar graph style. The lower portion will be used to accomplish these tasks. If the disk has not been initialized, there will be a red mark by the disk #. Right-click on the red mark and select to initialize the disk (this may also appear as Write Signature or Disk Signature depending on the operating system version). After initializing the disk, right-click under the black line for this disk and select New Partition. This will open up a partition wizard that will walk you through creating the partition and formatting the drive. When formatting completes, the drive will be listed as "Healthy ".

 

Hello alc,

Thank you for the procedure. What is the external USB case that you use?

Regards - Charles

 

Don't forget, try to get one with an on/off switch, it really is a pain to pull the plug, so much so I'm going to junk this Ultra w/o switch and buy one with a switch.

Martin

 

Hi Martin,

Don't forget, try to get one with an on/off switch, it really is a pain to pull the plug
I'm not forgetting! What case do you have in mind?

Not in a hurry with this - switched out my C drive yesterday and taking my time in setting up the new XP on the new drive. Really weird, no startups, relatively small Windows folder and no "grunge ", and I keep a "tight ship ". Can see why people periodically re-install. Also some "mysteries ", but I'll post a thread on those later in the XP forum.

Regards - Charles

 

I ordered this one today from: www.tigerdirect.com

Vantec NexStar2 USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (V13-1202)

$35.99 plus shipping. Not the only one available, but it was the least expensive one I found. Lots to pay for just getting one with a switch, but it is so annoying to me when I want to shut it down to have to reach around behind where I have the current one sitting, pull the plug, then when I want to use it, since I can't see the back, have to feel around & try to re-plug the adapter, usually miss the tiny little hole a couple of times. Adapter plugged in to strip under my desk, so it is either fight with the hole on the back of the case or get down on my hands and knees to unplug the adapter. Getting impatient in my old age.

Regards back at you.

Martin

 

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I have been out of my office. I purchased an ez bus dt from Fry's that has an on/off switch and a built in cooling fan. It was $54.99 with $30.00 rebates, so the price was right. It was very easy to install the hard drive - all connections were easy to get to - and the case slips on and off like a charm. It stays very cool when running, which was one thing I really wanted. It also has a stand which was included so you can either lay it flat or stand it up on the long side. Hope that helps.

 

Hi alc,

Took your advice on the USB - how could it be that cheap?

I'm also thinking about the enclosure that you got - looks like that'll be the one. Meets all the requirements and then some.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

 

charlesvar,

Here's one for 29.00 + shipping. Has a switch.

 

Thankyou Sparrow, haven't made a decision yet, so the more choices the better.

Happy Holidays to you!!

Regards - Charles

 

Hi Guys,

Ok, hooked it up today and it works even better than I thought it would.

What I decided to get was get the ez bus dt from Fry's that has an on/off switch and a built in cooling fan and it also came with imaging and backup software bundled with it.

What I'm going to try to do is add WinME to the dual boot menu I currently have and see if it's bootable that way. I didn't start out wanting to do that, but since I didn't have to do any formatting and the OS and it's files are there, why not?

Happy New Year everyone and thankyou all for participating in this thread, you're a great bunch of people.

Best Regards - Charles

 

Charles,
Is Fry's online or is a local store? Can you post a link to the enclosure you bought?

Happy New Year
Rockit

 

Charles: Happy New Year!

The Vantec enclosure I purchased did not come with any software. What software came with your drive?

Are you saying you have ME installed on USB drive and going to try to dual boot with the USB drive?

Very interesting, would like to know how it works out.

Regards back at you

Martin

 

Happy New Year Rockit and Martin,

Apricorn EZ-BUS-DT-KIT 3.5" USB2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure
http://shop3.outpost.com/{Qc9FgU20Kiv3tCYxJxcazTElfX603LlnQAwpd0do1TQc2g17eh8J|5770659114517229735/184095269/6/7001/7001/7002/7002/7001/-1|4463976164332590036/184095271/6/7001/7001/7002/7002/7001/-1|1104102785483}/product/4004222#detailed

Rockit, just paste that mess of a url - it'll work.

EZ Gig II Backup & Disaster Recovery Utility Software Included

EZ Gig II Data Transfer Utility:

Contains Clone EZ - creates a bootable clone of HD and Image EZ - creates a compressed image of the HD.

Also got Encryption software and Synchronization software.

Haven't tried any of the above yet.


Martin,

Are you saying you have ME installed on USB drive and going to try to dual boot with the USB drive?

Very interesting, would like to know how it works out.

What was I thinking? Doesn't work because booting from a USB device is not an option in the BIOS. Investigated this and found only the newest BIOS's would have that ability, haven't found an example of one either.

Ended up copying everything off that old C drive with WinMe on it and then reformating as NTFS.

Regards - Charles

 

Wow,
Looks cool Charles .. you'll have to let us know how it works

I see they are coming out with these mini usb storage devices and I'm pretty sure I saw one that was 4gb?

Are these faster than a hard drive for backing up files?

Lots of cool stuff out there for us computer geeks

Happy New Year
Rockit

 

Hey Rockit: Ill bet that 4 GB USB flash drive costs a lot more than a 40GB HDD and enclosure.

Charles, it may be possible to boot from USB using PowerQuest's Partition Magic. Their dual boot menu appears after the BIOS is finished loading, that may open the possibility. I just don't know if Partition Magic will allow install of second OS on drive other than "C ", or if it does, will it find 2nd OS on boot?

Going to try it as soon as holiday company leaves me time.

Will post results.

Martin

 

Hi All: Partition Magic will only allow install of 2nd OS to primary partition on IDE drive, no USB.

Too bad, would have been fun trying to set that one up.

Martin

Hey, just looked at my profile, where in the world did that "Super Geek" title come from? Sure as h**l not my view of myself. Arie, what are you doing? People who read that might get the idea I know something about computing, and nothing could be further from reality!!!

 

Hi Martin,

Ok, that's the result I get with Recovery Console - it's a BIOS issue. One of the references I came across:

Boot KNOPPIX from an USB Memory Stick
What you'll need:

Knoppix or an already stripped down version

USB Memory Stick

Computer capable of booting from USB

kernel with cloop-support

syslinux

http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/

EDIT: Forgot to add that the imaging software works fine. The clone software can't really test until needed.


Regards - Charles

 

Yeah Charles, I have my drive images on the USB drive, so it is not all bad, If push should come to shove, in some unforeseen extreme circumstance, with the drive image boot disc and the USB drive, I can migrate everything on my C & D Drives to another machine, wiping or creating C & D on that machine and have it think it is mine. Or, something like that.

In effect, what I'm doing is cloning onto the USB drive. Since it is 200GB, I can save a few images.

Am I having fun yet? No, 'cause d**n DVD+-R RW drives acting up again. Feel like chucking them. Spent about 2 hours editing movie of daughter's 5th grade Christmas play, click burn, error, can't write to disc, AAARRRRRRGH!! Lost the editing, still have the AVI, still trying to fix burners.
Fixes that worked last time, this time, no joy.

I hate to post anymore problems, too much flak, everybody telling me to format and install clean which I'm not going to do. I'm going to be brave though and post anyhow, I can take the flak.

Take care,

Martin

 

Been scratching my head about the need for an on/off switch on a drive enclosure when the drive is hot-swappable and now have a bald spot where once there was hair - oh well, thought I'd pass this link along for the budget minded. Not a bad deal.