i just bought a external hdd case and a 160gb hdd. what setting do i need to put on the hdd.
master slave or cable select? id assume master? this is what ive done but so far no luck from actually recognising the device.

running XP pro SP1 using usb 2.0 hub. on a p3 1ghz 512ram um yer..

any help?

you'd want SP2, or load the device driver for the case/interface.

set the drive to 'single drive'

is your mobo or card USB2.0? if only the hub is usb 2.0, and the PC is not, then it'll be WAAAAAAYYY SLOOOOOWWWW.

pci usb 2 card external case is plugged straight in to that. 2 ports on mobo are usb1 thus i got the pci card. drivers that came with case are only for 98.

i also have a usb 2.0 7 port powered hub but i plugged it straight into the back of the PC.(pci card.)

ill pull it out kno and see what happens

EDIT: still no love. i CBF tonight ill endevour more 2morro. might try a diff hdd case from work. find out whetehr its me teh case of the hdd

Right mouse click on My Computer and select Manage.

From Computer Management select Disk Management.

Do you see your external drive listed here?

If the disk is displayed does it have a drive letter allocated to it?

If not .... then assign a drive letter to it and windows should now see your drive.

otherwise - what about power - is the drive externally powered?
USB2.0 usually won't supply enough juice to run a large drive (startup current >1A)

has a 2.5A 12V switchmode PSU. to my knowledge only the 2.5" drives can be run off usb only.

ok i think what u suggested Alan did the trick. im just formatting it now.

i have another question. my main drive a 20gig is NTFS format where as my secondary drive is also a 20gig but is FAT32.

i kno these different settings is all about file managment etc. but which is best . eventually the 2nd 20gig will go in the case and the 160 into my PC but i have 2 -3 computers all with multiple hdd's i need to pull stuff from

I know Vista has trouble with NAS.... I bought a External HDD case recently and they don't work with Vista. All of them.

Vista is beginning to suck.

NTFS is the better file system. It supports larger disk capacities, it supports NTFS file permissions, it supports encrypting, etc, etc.

So unless you are running some older O/S's that would not recognise an NTFS partition and specifically needs FAT32 then get rid of it and format the disk as NTFS.

as Sierra said - NTFS is more efficient.
If you don't use DOS or Windows98 or Mac, then NTFS is the way to go.

The convertor in WinXP - 'convert.exe' actually works quite well to convert Fat32 to NTFS. I have used it on several machines without any loss of data.

ok well i got it all going.

for future reference i have the hdd set as a "slave" in my case this means there is no jumper set.... i then liek alan told me too i assigned the drive a letter ( i made it Z as i have 4 partions on 1 drive a 2nd internal drive, and 2 rom drives so i needed a nice low letter and hopefully if i ever use it on other machines i wotn have any probs.

ok so i assigne dit a letter. and formatted the new drive under the NTFS
file system. all is going well now, many thanks. i can finally get all my stuff on 1 drive. and whipe the others clean. its well overdue for a clean.

Good to hear it's all working now Jono

ok well it worked but my computer kept on freezing. so i wasnt to happy. i decided to do some re arranging.

the old set up was
``20gig primary master
``DVD rom primary slave
``CD RW seconday master
``20gig secondary slave

i didnt have an ATA133 cable on the 2 secondary drives. and ive done some swapping around. and it seems to make file searching and opening much faster.

``20gig primary master
``CDRW primary slave(i figured a burner should take preference to a reader)
``160gig secondary master now using a ATA133 80conducter lead
``DVD rom secondary slave.

im happy because it all works. i now have 5 times the hdd space it seem to run faster and by re arranging the case by moving drives around its neater inside and there is more air flow aroudn the hdd drives. now all i need is a PC that isnt 5 years old

i'll put SP2 on it next i think.

thanks again guys. OH the way i have now setup the drives. is this the best way????

its fine, although your downloads and installs will revert to the primary master(OS drive) so you'll run out of space quickly if you dont change the settings for installs/DL's to the 160gig.

also, in regards to the external drive and other comps, they will auto-assign it a drive letter. the next available letter. ie, if you have "c:" and "d:" it will become "e:". if you have up to "s:" it will be "t:"...

@gonadman. there have been many bugs in vista for a lot of people like that. google searches help with many of my mates' problems so far. i am running the RC2 version of vista on a lappy and a desktop, and my external drives work 100%. maybe its just a bug with the RTM build...

i dont have games as the PC is a piece of crap. and any media goes onto the 160 after its downloaded. i didnt need the 160gig but the bigger you buy the cheaper it gets. and i didnt want to go too big or my MOBO would struggle with like a 250-300gig.

i have SP2 here. original version that came with the magazine release...

remind me next time and ill bring it round

Yep only took me a week of firmware updating and so forth but I eventually got there! Its working sweet as, just a little slow over the wireless network.

BTW, what is the RC2 Build? I'm using Home Premium FYI.

RC2 is the Release Candidate 2. it was build 5600 of vista. final or RTM(Release To Manufacture) is build 6000.

it was available off of microsofts website back in october or november for free, and they gave you a unique serial to install it on up to 10 machines. home premium? aww, you have to go ultimate.