I’m using a IDE to USB cable to connect my old HD to my computer. Comes up in Hardware Manger, not in My Comp.

Mike-Q: I’m using a IDE to USB cable to connect my old HD to my computer. Comes up in Hardware Manger, not in My Comp.
I’m using a USB to IDE cable to connect my old hard drive to my new computer. The hard drive is already formatted and partitioned, as it was used on my old computer in working condition. My computer sees the hard drive, in the sense that it comes up in the “Safely Remove Hardware” option in the bottom right hand of my desktop, and I can see it in the Hardware Manager, but I don’t see it in “Computer Management” or My Computer. I would be able to assign it a letter if it came up in Computer Management, but it doesn’t. Any one know what to do?

Answers and Views:

Answer by smack
look at the lable and see what the cylinders/sectors/heads are then look in ur bios settup and see if its detecting it the same … if not enter the specs manually … it may straighten it out to reformat it as its hooked up now … did you try setting the jumper to master?

Answer by dewcoons
Go into Device Manger and uninstall the usb hard drive
Then uninstall the usb ports
Reboot the pc and it should redect the ports
Reattach the usb hard drive and (hopefully) it will detect it this time
See that a lot. If it does not detect right, you have to clear all the settings before it will redetect.

Answer by coloradohurricane
What version of Windows are you using now ? And what version of Windows was on your old hard drive (assuming it was a bootable drive) ? If the old hard drive had Win NT or Windows 2000, I have heard that occasionally, older versions of NTFS formatted drives have problems with encryption which make them unreadable with Win XP. That’s not likely, though.

My guess is that the hard drive isn’t getting enough power. I have an external kit which turns an IDE drive into a USB one, and it has 2 USB connections(taking up two ports). If one gets unplugged, it will still be recognized in the device manager, but it will not be able to be read by windows. the manual which came with the kit also says that it may be neccesary to use an external power source if two are not enough.

Answer by smgray99
The drive must be set as a master for it to work in that configuration. ost drives are set for cable select so it is a simple thing to move one jumper.

Answer by Jarhead
dewcoons and smack are right on the head. The only way Computer Management will recognize the old drive is to have it being detected in the bios. The Safely Remove Hardware, is a good sign but in this case, not relevant to your problem, that’s just where to unhook and move the device.. Check the Bios to make sure it’s being detected, and instead of setting the jumper to Master, set it to Cable Select instead, Most PC’s recognize the drive alot faster by cable select then master, setting to master, the PC has to filter through commands and pings to see what all is master, cable select is a auto-detection feature per say… Both of these solutions should have it showing in computer management, and just because the drive is formatted from the old pc, it may need reformatting for the new pc to talk to the heads. Good Luck