The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    External HD not connecting to Dell Dimension 4500

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Jay07, Jun 22, 2008.

  1. Jay07

    Jay07 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    13
    Messages:
    267
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I have a friend who's father has an ancient Dell Dimension 4500 desktop. For fathers day this year, he got a Seagate Freeagent Pro 750 GB Hard drive, but the desktop would not recognize it, so he called me up and I took down his specs.

    Dell Dimension DIM 4500.
    Intel Pentium (R) 4 CPU, 2.00 GHZ, 256 MB Ram.
    Running Windows XP Home.

    We plugged the Seagate in, and nothing showed. There was no install disc, but I was thinking, does this computer have too few resources and RAM to actually read the drive? What can we do to make it work?
     
    Jay07, Jun 22, 2008
    #1
  2. wywern209

    wywern209 NBR Dark Knight

    Reputations:
    47
    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    if i connects using usb, the usb might not be supplying enough power to the harddrive and upgrading ram shud have been done a long time ago and i thought a 512 was small! upgrade to 2 gb of ram in dual channel.
     
    wywern209, Jun 22, 2008
    #2
  3. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    358
    Messages:
    1,710
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    does it show up in device manager but not in My Computer? if so, it may need to be partitioned/formatted/assigned drive letter using disk management. It shouldn't need power from the USB port as it should have its own ac power adapter (3.5" drives cannot be powered by USB).

    The amount of ram/CPU speed does not play a factor in whether this drive is detected properly or not.
     
    goofball, Jun 22, 2008
    #3
  4. The_Observer

    The_Observer 9262 is the best:)

    Reputations:
    385
    Messages:
    2,662
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Right click my computer and choose manage.In there,there is disk management.See if it's listed there.If so initialize and format it.

    It has a power supply right?Look if the lights turn on.
     
    The_Observer, Jun 22, 2008
    #4