Hard drive caddy
 

Ive finally got round to getting my old hard drive out of my old PC, the plan was to use a hard drive caddy that ive had a while.
Ive used it before when my last PC went pete tong, but for the life of me i cant remember if it was plug and play.
Plugged it in my new PC via USB and expected to see it as a storage device on my list, but its not there.
Been looking throught the system to try and see it but because they is no branding on it, i wouldnt know it if i tripped over it.

Can anyone offer any help ?

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Does the drive show up in disk management? If so it might be that it needs initialising and a partition making on it before it will show up in "Computer". I think if you do a quick google there should be plenty of guides around.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

No the drive doesnt show up anywhere.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Erm well if it isnt showing up under admin tools>disc management.., first ports of call I can think of:

Is there enough power for the hard drive? Is there one/ two USB connectors or is there an external power source for the case?

Are the jumpers on the drive set to Master?

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Hard drive caddy has its own power source, not sure about master, i know when you put a secondary drive in a pc you have to have one as slave, didnt think you would for the caddy, dont remember doing that before.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

bung it inside the machine Phil, may find it easier.

Prob not if it's a USB caddy. if the disk has any type of encryption this can cause this issue. Sata I presume, just check the power is connected as well as the data (don't mean to point out the bleeding obvious) and if the caddy has a integral fan, disconntect it so you can listen to check that the disk is spinning up.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Sorry I ment make sure the jumpers are set to master.

Does anything at all happen when the drive is plugged in, such as the safely remove hardware tab appearing in the bottom right hand corner?

Are any other USB storage devices attached to you computer?

If possible plug it into another computer and see if the behaviour is the same.

Quick question, how did the computer this drive came from die?

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Old pc not dead, just upgraded.
There isnt any jumpers at all on the drive, but it ran without them in the pc.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

I would think it would need to be master if its in a USB caddy, it doesn't connect to the usual IDE channels, so master/slave isn't an issue.
Does it spin up ok? the USB caddy shouldnt need a driver, but check just in case. Try it on another pc? ubuntu would be good.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Post up the make and model of the drive Phil, then we can get rid of any questions over whether it's SATA or IDE and whether it has jumpers hidden somewhere. If when you say there is no branding on it did you mean the drive? If so there may be something to identify it on a chip or on the circuit board.

What do you want to use it for and how big is the drive? You can pick up a 500GB USB drive in PC World for 35 quid now. You may just be wasting your time.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

No its an IDE drive, i meant the caddy had no branding on it.
Because the drive has a lot of photos etc on it and i had the caddy already i thought i would use it as a external hard drive for back ups etc.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Does the remove external hardware tab appear in the bottom tight hand corner when it's plugged in?

Have you got another computer to try it on?

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Make sure the USB port you are plugging it into is enabled, so go into My computer - right click, properties, hardware tab - device manager - USB controllers at the bottom. Make sure there are no red crosses. enable any if there are

Could be a duff USB port or as I had, a duff caddy, (most likely a duff circuit board)

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

You can buy cheap IDE - USB cables + power supply for the drive from Maplins.

You don't need a caddy, its a cheap way of checking the drive works

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

YOU NEED TO LOCK THE CADDY WITH THE KEY - THIS TURNS THE HARD DRIVE ON. IT SHOULD THEN SHOW UP ONCE ITS POWERED UP.

It will just sit there no lights nothing until you lock the caddy.

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

Did he say its got a key :confused:

None of my caddies have ever had a key :confused:

Just an on - off switch

Re: Hard drive caddy
 

No key on mine. My pc is quite new so I'm sure the USB is fine. Could be the caddy itself I guess.

I'll try it on my laptop later, if not I'll bang it back on the old machine and take the data off it that way.