USB hard disks

Hi,

OK - here's possibly an interesting one...

I have recently purchased a new PC which has two SATA hard drives - no IDE
drives at all.

Have installed my MSDN copy of Vista Business on it - for development and
testing purposes, naturally... :-)

I also have a USB IDE hard disk harness which allows me to treat a
stand-alone IDE hard drive as a USB device.

When I plug the USB hard disk into one of the new PC's USB ports, it
recognises it as a removable device but, because the machine has no IDE hard
disk drivers on it, doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't create a drive
letter for it etc... Windows Explorer (you know what I mean) seems to hang
for an age while it tries to work out what to do with the new device, then
displays nothing.

Installing Vista onto a machine with IDE hard disks doesn't display this
behaviour because it already knows all about IDE hard drives and what to do
with them.

What's the easiest way round this? Is it simply a matter of copying some
files from the Vista image into the PC's %SYSTEM32% folder, or is there more
to it than that...?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Mark

Check your BIOS settings for your board. I don't see why the firmware in
the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate with the usb bus just fine. I
can't imagine that the IDE connection in the enclosure would make any
difference at all. The enclosure is not connecting to an IDE port on the
box. The system should just see it as a mass storage device.

"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:u%...
> Hi,
>
> OK - here's possibly an interesting one...
>
> I have recently purchased a new PC which has two SATA hard drives - no IDE
> drives at all.
>
> Have installed my MSDN copy of Vista Business on it - for development and
> testing purposes, naturally... :-)
>
> I also have a USB IDE hard disk harness which allows me to treat a
> stand-alone IDE hard drive as a USB device.
>
> When I plug the USB hard disk into one of the new PC's USB ports, it
> recognises it as a removable device but, because the machine has no IDE
> hard disk drivers on it, doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't create a
> drive letter for it etc... Windows Explorer (you know what I mean) seems
> to hang for an age while it tries to work out what to do with the new
> device, then displays nothing.
>
> Installing Vista onto a machine with IDE hard disks doesn't display this
> behaviour because it already knows all about IDE hard drives and what to
> do with them.
>
> What's the easiest way round this? Is it simply a matter of copying some
> files from the Vista image into the PC's %SYSTEM32% folder, or is there
> more to it than that...?
>
> Any assistance gratefully received.
>
> Mark
>

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
news:%...

> Check your BIOS settings for your board.

You mean the motherboard on the PC...?

> I don't see why the firmware in the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate
> with the usb bus just fine. I can't imagine that the IDE connection in
> the enclosure would make any difference at all. The enclosure is not
> connecting to an IDE port on the box. The system should just see it as a
> mass storage device.

Everything you say makes perfect sense, and would have been my reaction
too... :-)

However, after having tried on five separate machines now, the common
denominator appears to be whether the machine has IDE drives or not. If it
has, the USB harness works - if it hasn't, it doesn't...

I'm considering installing an IDE hard disk into the new machine which
currently has only SATA drives, though the motherboard has the standard two
dual IDE channels... Doing that should prove / disprove it...

That just does not sound right. Check with the manufacturer of the
enclosure.

I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS. Check
your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it a try.
But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter. I don't
care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA drive, if
you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are connecting to the
usb bus on the computer. A puzzler.

OT: If you have an external SATA connector on the box, try a SATA enclosure
sometime. On the newer boxes the external connector is just like having a
SATA 5 (assuming you have 4 SATA connectors on the board) and you can use it
as a boot drive. I did that all through the beta and RC.

"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:%...
>
>> Check your BIOS settings for your board.
>
> You mean the motherboard on the PC...?
>
>> I don't see why the firmware in the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate
>> with the usb bus just fine. I can't imagine that the IDE connection in
>> the enclosure would make any difference at all. The enclosure is not
>> connecting to an IDE port on the box. The system should just see it as a
>> mass storage device.
>
> Everything you say makes perfect sense, and would have been my reaction
> too... :-)
>
> However, after having tried on five separate machines now, the common
> denominator appears to be whether the machine has IDE drives or not. If it
> has, the USB harness works - if it hasn't, it doesn't...
>
> I'm considering installing an IDE hard disk into the new machine which
> currently has only SATA drives, though the motherboard has the standard
> two dual IDE channels... Doing that should prove / disprove it...
>

You said you had no IDE, but presumably you have a DVD drive right? And it
would be PATA/IDE?

Possibly this is a somewhat simpler issue - make sure the IDE drive is
jumpered as Master. Not Cable Select, and definately not Slave. That can
be the difference between working and not. If you are seeing the USB Mass
Storage interface installed but not a disk, that is very possibly the issue.

Rich

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
news:...
> That just does not sound right. Check with the manufacturer of the
> enclosure.
>
> I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS. Check
> your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it a try.
> But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter. I don't
> care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA drive,
> if you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are connecting to
> the usb bus on the computer. A puzzler.
>
> OT: If you have an external SATA connector on the box, try a SATA
> enclosure sometime. On the newer boxes the external connector is just
> like having a SATA 5 (assuming you have 4 SATA connectors on the board)
> and you can use it as a boot drive. I did that all through the beta and
> RC.
>
> "Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:%...
>>
>>> Check your BIOS settings for your board.
>>
>> You mean the motherboard on the PC...?
>>
>>> I don't see why the firmware in the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate
>>> with the usb bus just fine. I can't imagine that the IDE connection in
>>> the enclosure would make any difference at all. The enclosure is not
>>> connecting to an IDE port on the box. The system should just see it as
>>> a mass storage device.
>>
>> Everything you say makes perfect sense, and would have been my reaction
>> too... :-)
>>
>> However, after having tried on five separate machines now, the common
>> denominator appears to be whether the machine has IDE drives or not. If
>> it has, the USB harness works - if it hasn't, it doesn't...
>>
>> I'm considering installing an IDE hard disk into the new machine which
>> currently has only SATA drives, though the motherboard has the standard
>> two dual IDE channels... Doing that should prove / disprove it...
>>
>
>

Mark,

Not sure why, all four of my hard drives are SATA2, and my DVD is SATA1. No
IDE.
I have two USB 2.0 "fobs" a 1.0 GB and a 512 MB and don't run into the same
problem.

What happens when you launch the disk manager?


Bill F.

"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:u%...
> Hi,
>
> OK - here's possibly an interesting one...
>
> I have recently purchased a new PC which has two SATA hard drives - no IDE
> drives at all.
>
> Have installed my MSDN copy of Vista Business on it - for development and
> testing purposes, naturally... :-)
>
> I also have a USB IDE hard disk harness which allows me to treat a
> stand-alone IDE hard drive as a USB device.
>
> When I plug the USB hard disk into one of the new PC's USB ports, it
> recognises it as a removable device but, because the machine has no IDE
> hard disk drivers on it, doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't create a
> drive letter for it etc... Windows Explorer (you know what I mean) seems
> to hang for an age while it tries to work out what to do with the new
> device, then displays nothing.
>
> Installing Vista onto a machine with IDE hard disks doesn't display this
> behaviour because it already knows all about IDE hard drives and what to
> do with them.
>
> What's the easiest way round this? Is it simply a matter of copying some
> files from the Vista image into the PC's %SYSTEM32% folder, or is there
> more to it than that...?
>
> Any assistance gratefully received.
>
> Mark
>

That doesn't sound right to me either. I have a computer in which the
installed hard drive is SATA only, and I have both my USB and Firewire drive
running with no issues.


"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:%...
>
>> Check your BIOS settings for your board.
>
> You mean the motherboard on the PC...?
>
>> I don't see why the firmware in the drive enclosure wouldn't communicate
>> with the usb bus just fine. I can't imagine that the IDE connection in
>> the enclosure would make any difference at all. The enclosure is not
>> connecting to an IDE port on the box. The system should just see it as a
>> mass storage device.
>
> Everything you say makes perfect sense, and would have been my reaction
> too... :-)
>
> However, after having tried on five separate machines now, the common
> denominator appears to be whether the machine has IDE drives or not. If it
> has, the USB harness works - if it hasn't, it doesn't...
>
> I'm considering installing an IDE hard disk into the new machine which
> currently has only SATA drives, though the motherboard has the standard
> two dual IDE channels... Doing that should prove / disprove it...
>

"Disk"drivers are part of windows regardless of installing the motherboard
drivers or not.
That includes drivers for USB.
All the years I have been installing XP or any other version of windows ALL
hard drives are seen and can be used before the "chipset"drivers were
installed.
Vista is no different.
I installed Vista and external hard drives work ok.
There are built in drivers for hard drives in Vista and there are no
motherboard drivers anywhere yet.

"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:u%...
> Hi,
>
> OK - here's possibly an interesting one...
>
> I have recently purchased a new PC which has two SATA hard drives - no IDE
> drives at all.
>
> Have installed my MSDN copy of Vista Business on it - for development and
> testing purposes, naturally... :-)
>
> I also have a USB IDE hard disk harness which allows me to treat a
> stand-alone IDE hard drive as a USB device.
>
> When I plug the USB hard disk into one of the new PC's USB ports, it
> recognises it as a removable device but, because the machine has no IDE
> hard disk drivers on it, doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't create a
> drive letter for it etc... Windows Explorer (you know what I mean) seems
> to hang for an age while it tries to work out what to do with the new
> device, then displays nothing.
>
> Installing Vista onto a machine with IDE hard disks doesn't display this
> behaviour because it already knows all about IDE hard drives and what to
> do with them.
>
> What's the easiest way round this? Is it simply a matter of copying some
> files from the Vista image into the PC's %SYSTEM32% folder, or is there
> more to it than that...?
>
> Any assistance gratefully received.
>
> Mark
>
>

"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
news:...

> That just does not sound right.

I know!

> Check with the manufacturer of the enclosure.

I will do. FWIW, the USB hard disk enclosure also works perfectly when
connected to my Mac Mini...

> I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS. Check
> your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it a try.
> But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter. I don't
> care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA drive,
> if you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are connecting to
> the usb bus on the computer.

PATA isn't turned off.

> A puzzler.

You're telling me! This is an example of what I'm seeing:
http://www.markrae.com/USBHD.jpg

Obviously, that's a WinXP machine, but it's the same sort of thing in Vista.

That's a USB "driver"problem.

"Mark Rae" <> wrote in message
news:e7yB%...
> "Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:...
>
>> That just does not sound right.
>
> I know!
>
>> Check with the manufacturer of the enclosure.
>
> I will do. FWIW, the USB hard disk enclosure also works perfectly when
> connected to my Mac Mini...
>
>> I know a lot of the recent boards have PATA turned off in the BIOS.
>> Check your board manual or the website for the right settings and give it
>> a try. But I still don't see how anything IDE on the board could matter.
>> I don't care whether the connector in the enclosure is for an IDE or SATA
>> drive, if you are using the usb connector on the enclosure you are
>> connecting to the usb bus on the computer.
>
> PATA isn't turned off.
>
>> A puzzler.
>
> You're telling me! This is an example of what I'm seeing:
> http://www.markrae.com/USBHD.jpg
>
> Obviously, that's a WinXP machine, but it's the same sort of thing in
> Vista.
>