external hd enclosure not working, help please

I bought a Mad Dog Multimedia USB 2.5" HD enclosure for my hd from a broken Compal CL56 (when I was trying to get it repaired, a computer tech said he tested the hd and it was working).

When I put the notebook hd in the enclosure, and then plug in the USB to a working laptop (XP Pro, I also tried a desktop with the same results) a bubble comes up in the taskbar saying "Mass USB storage device found", then a minute later it says something along the lines of "your USB storage device could not be intalled and may not work properly". And in fact, it does not work properly, or at all. It does not show up anywhere.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

-Matt

 

Its not a problem with the actual hardware. Its a software problem as Windows managed to recognise the device.

The reason why it says that it could not be installed is because you have not installed the drivers/software that came with your HDD Enclosure.

Install the drivers, restart and the druve should pop up in My Computer.

 

oh, the cd says the drivers are for windows 98, but i guess i propably should have tried that anyways. ill give it a go.

 

Nope, that didnt work. Still comes up with the same error message. Any other suggestions?

 

The driver CD is just for 98 computers that don't have USB plug-n-play compatibility.

Could it be possible that the hard drive is actually bad? Do you have another enclosure/computer you can plug the 2.5 inch drive into and see if it's accessible??

 

I don't have anything else to plug it into. I guess the guy could be wrong, and my hd is bad, i hope not though. I'll just have to wait to bring it somewhere else on monday.

 

Check your case documents; you did set it "master" right? You do not need any drivers for XP for a USB hard drive. You may also have a bad USB cable or case. Try on a second XP/MAC computer,

New laptop? some of the older laptops require you to use BOTH usb plugs, for current requirements, if supplied with the Y usb cord.

 

hmm...I'd take it apart and ensure eveything is correctly assembled according to the instructions.

 

I'v taken it apart several times, tried using both cables, other computers, still nothing. I guess it must be a bad hd.

 

Check under Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management and see if your hard drive appears. It may just be that the hard drive needs to be formatted.

 

Have you hooked up both cables supplied witht he drive to two USB ports?

Depending on the drive you wil need to have both cables hooked up for there to be enough power for hard drive.

 

The drive doesnt show up there either, and i tried both cables, no go.

 

why not try the External HDD on another PC is possible, and then we will know whether the problem lies within the actual Hard Drive or your computer.

 

i already tried that.

 

I'm almost sure that drive isn't receiving enough power. Most 2.5" HDDs require more than 500mA (USB2.0's max) and require specifically designed USB cables that are a "Y" shape. One port plugs into the drive, and two to the laptop (one for power and the other for more power and data transfer).

What you are describing is almost always (in my experience) the symptom of a lack of power.

In the device manager, are there any error codes listed in the properties?

 

It works!

I tried the 2 USB cables again, and this time it worked. I think the problem was that the first try came immediately after using one and getting the bad install message.

Thanks.