External HD help..

dawballz

Hi,
I bought an internal Hard drive off boards - the 400GB one.. can't remember who was selling it at the moment..
But the case for it only arrived this weekend.
I installed the hd and set is as master(Is this right?), but it doesn't work.
It shows up in windows but doesn't assign a drive letter.

HELP!


edit; user was dilogoat.. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054886614
it is an ide drive.

edit;
When I have the drive plugged in and on, and open Partition Magic, it gives an error on the splash screen:
"Init Failed: Error 100.
Partition table is bad"

majiktripp

Right click My Computer,Select Manage,In the new window that opens click on Disk management and see if your 400GB drive is listed there,it may need to be formatted for it to work correctly again

Sam Vimes

try formatting the drive. right-click on my computer and click manage. click disk management. does it who up there? if so format it. does it work if you plug it in internally?

Sam Vimes

majiktripp wrote:

Right click My Computer,Select Manage,In the new window that opens click on Disk management and see if your 400GB drive is listed there,it may need to be formatted for it to work correctly again

beat me to it :cool:

dawballz

It doesnt show up in disk management.

Don't have a desktop pc to try it in.. just have 2 laptops

It does show up under "Disk drives" in device manager though.

dawballz

Just tried changing the jumper to cable select, but no luck.. same problem.

edit; also just tried a different USB cable.

8T8

Well the bad partition table could be a clue, but I suggest you find a desktop PC to try something, assuming this is a regular IDE Seagate hard drive in a third party external case, go download and run Seagates SeaTools and run some diagnostics on the drive.

Get it to test the file structure if it has the option (they say they do) or do a format of the drive if they supply the option.

If access to a desktop PC is not possible then try Partition Magic's repair option I recall there being one in the programs menu somewhere.

dawballz

Ok since I don;t have access to a Desktop, I brought it down to a friend in PC world.
He plugged it into a USB to IDE convertor and it didn't work.
He then plugged it into a Desktop, via IDE cable.
He said that the disk was spinning funny, as if there was something off centre inside the disk(if you tilted the disk slightly, there would be an "opposing force". And he said he never felt that before with a HD, so he reckoned it's busted.

TempestSabre

I can't take anyone in PC World seriously. For a large drive you are going to have to initialise it using the seagate drive software. It could be faulty but I suspect like my own large seagate drives you need to initialise them with Seagate tools. Partition magic didn't work on mine either. If you are near D.15 (PM me) I'll have a look at it for you. Or meet you with seagate tools installed on my lappy. I think you are in Galway though. Download the tools here.

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

dawballz

Thanks TempestSabre, but I am in galway.
Appreciate the offer though.
Just after downloading Seatools and burning it and i have a few downloads that have to finish, so I'll check it then, and post a reply.

dawballz

Well SeaTools didn't work on the lappy.
Would it be worth trying changing the jumpers? I have already tried "Slave" and "Cable Select".. should I try "Master" or try taking out the jumpers altogether?

If I can get access to a desktop, I'll try seatools on that, for it won;t be for a while.

TempestSabre

Usually it should be master if its in a USB enclosure.

Can Seagate tools see it? Whats the error?

MunsterCycling

dawballz wrote:

Well SeaTools didn't work on the lappy.
Would it be worth trying changing the jumpers? I have already tried "Slave" and "Cable Select".. should I try "Master" or try taking out the jumpers altogether?

If I can get access to a desktop, I'll try seatools on that, for it won;t be for a while.

It should be set to master ALWAYS if its in a usb enclosure....

dawballz

MunsterCycling wrote:

It should be set to master ALWAYS if its in a usb enclosure....

hmm, the leaflet i got with the enclosure said to set it to slave..
anyway, i'll take your word for it.
Does it matter which way the jumper is? upside down? etc?

TempestSabre

Well you need to try it on a IDE channel on a recent board that supports large drives with the seagate tools. The problem could be on the drive, the enclosure or how its being formatted/initialised.

chalky

I got this hdd as well and was using it in an enclosure up until a couple of weeks ago (when it died). I had it set to slave (cos the enclosure told me to) . I had to format it first, I plugged it into the spare bay in my PC fo that though.

dawballz

How did the HD die?
Did you get a replacement?
So..
First you had to format the drive, then put it in the enclosure(set as slave), then the HD died?

dawballz

Update on this:
I managed to get the drive into a PC.
Ran the Quick Diagnostic check from seagate seatools and it passed, perfect.
Didn;'t have time for the full check.

Booted the comp up into windows and ran disk mgmnt and it detected it.
So I initialised it to NTFS and I THINK, primary partition. Didn't know to do primary partition or extended partition(logical was a greyed out option), so I went with primary.
I then got an option to assign it a drive letter and I chose to not assign a drive letter(since it wouldn't be staying in that comp), but I formatted it and gave it a volume name.
Then shut down the PC and took out the HD.
Now, back home, I plugged in the HD into the case, and the case into the Lappy(etc.), and still, it doesn't assign the "USB Device" a letter.
Tried switching around the jumpers too.
It doesn't show up in disk management with any jumper settings, and also partition magic gives the same error posted above.

Any help?
It seems the HD is actually working, which is good.

MunsterCycling

It probably the enclosure that is faulty, can you check with another disk? Maybe the disk and enclosure just aren't compatible, it does happen.

L31mr0d

You can see the drive in device manager but not "my computer", am i correct?
Are you running Windows2000 or XP, make sure windows 2000 is installed up to SP4 and XP up to SP2 so that you know for definite that the 137GB limit isn't the issue.

There is a few things you can try.
1. Install big drive enabler (its made by maxtor but works for any drive as it just appends a line to your registry telling it to look for large drive, i've attached it to this post
2. Reinstall the drivers for the Disk manually - go into device manager, select the drive, then properties, go to drivers and select update (you may need to first uninstall the drivers for the HDD for this to work), choose to install your drivers manually from a location on the disk. Browse to path: c:/WINDOWS/inf and try to install the drivers, then browse to path: c:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers if the previous location doesn't work. You may need to set your folder options to "show hidden files and folders" as the inf folder is usually hidden. It should find the generic driver for HDDs then try to install it.
3. Go to control panel/administrative tool/computer management. Then in the storage section click on disk management. Your HDD might appear in there. Try manually assigning it a drive letter or formatting it.

Try those things then get back to me

TempestSabre

You should have tried in the enclosure on the PC on which it worked. Then there would be only unknown. The enclosure.

Using it on the PC you don't know if its the laptop bios or the enclosure. Not all enclosures support drives over 120GB.