USB to IDE - Trying to get files off an old harddrive...

So this is something a bit old school...

I bought a USB to IDE/SATA Combo Kit from ThinkGeek.com (and now it's not on the site... WTF?) so that I could gather all my old files off all my old harddrives onto my new laptop.

It came in today and I hooked everything up, heard the drive whirring (rather loudly, but smoothly) and plugged in the USB cable, and the computer recognized it saying I had a new USB device/drive. Problem is, it won't show up under the Computer folder like other USB flashdrives. I've looked and looked, and can't access it anywhere.

My Device Manager shows that it's working properly and that there is a USB storage drive attached. I just can't access it. And I've checked and rechecked all my cables, and they're all plugged in correctly.

So, I have a little theory that it might have something to do with the jumper configuration... I think it's set to Master/Cable Select. Could that possibly be my problem?

The drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 7200rpm drive (Model 5T030H3). The first set of pins farthest from the power supply are shunted vertically, and then the pins next to it are shunted horizontally on the top row, like this (there's no pin where the _ is):

X Z Z _ o
X o o o o

I'm running Windows 7 on an ASUS laptop. Unfortunately the Combo Kit doesn't seem to have a manufacturers/company name.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated! If you need any more details, just let me know.

Thank you!

 

Change the drive letter in disk management, that usually fixes it.

 

Um, not to sound utterly stupid... but how would I do that?

 

Ok, went to Microsoft's website and followed the instructions there to try and change the drive letter in disk management... now I'm getting a "this drive is not initialized" error.

When I attempt to initialize it or do anything with it, it says "Drive not ready"... thoughts?

 

Your jumpers look correct. One thought--Did your cable come with a power cord? Some drives need the extra power.

 

Yup, the Combo kit came with a power supply and a molex splitter, one end goes into the device itself and the other goes into the harddrive. The molex ends are also shaped so you can't screw up which side is up when plugging in (which is apparently a problem with similar devices from other websites).

I actually got it to work! I thought about the whole "change drive letter thing" and remembered that when working with the Master/Slave config, the slave drive is almost always automatically designated a D:\ drive.

So I said what the heck, and pulled the front shunt off the jumpers. Sure enough, when I plugged the USB back in, the computer saw it as a D:\ drive and I was able to access it and pull my files.

Sorry to have bothered you guys over what turned out to be such a simple fix. I was just a bit worried that messing with the jumpers might some how screw up the drive, and wanted to see if there were other options first.

Thanks for all your help! ^_^

 

Thanks for posting back.

Glad you figured it out. So setting the drive as slave was the fix. Good to know. I honestly thought master was the correct setting.

 

I did not know that either. When you install an internal hd into an external case, the directions always say to set it to master.

I pulled a hd out of a computer and connected it just by the IDE/USB adapter but I don't remember if I changed the jumper.