Internal HDD thru USB case not detected

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I recently upgraded my HDD to 160 GB ..I actually wanted to exchange the old HDD (40GB) and adjust with the price of the new one..The comp service guy said that the internal HDD could be used as a USB disk if I purchase a CASE for this..

I bought a case thro which I attached the old IDE HDD...

The LED is on when I connect (The USB cable had 2 leads which I had to connect it in 2 USB slots- Direct in my cabinet (not thru Hub),,,

Ubuntu 10.04 is recognizing the disk in "System Info" as "USB - Generic HDD"...But that's it, I am not able to run Gparted or anything...Even in win7 , it said "Installing software for devices" and later on nothing happens...This is not shown in File Manager

I would like to know how to format and make it usable..

Also , since HDDs involve some amount of power , is it wise to connect it to another computer, I mean there wont be an overload or spike or something like that?? We have 220 Volt electricity in my country... Aso logically speaking there has to be a limit I mean, you cant keep "chain loading" multiple HDD through USB Hubs ,right!!

This is a long shot but I'll ask anyway. Is this an older machine? Some older machines had a 137Gb limit. I recently ran into the problem and didn't find it until I ran a Western Digital diagnostic disk. Download and run a diagnostic from the company who made the hard drive.

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Originally Posted by vikrang

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I recently upgraded my HDD to 160 GB ..I actually wanted to exchange the old HDD (40GB) and adjust with the price of the new one..The comp service guy said that the internal HDD could be used as a USB disk if I purchase a CASE for this..

I bought a case thro which I attached the old IDE HDD...

The LED is on when I connect (The USB cable had 2 leads which I had to connect it in 2 USB slots- Direct in my cabinet (not thru Hub),,,

Ubuntu 10.04 is recognizing the disk in "System Info" as "USB - Generic HDD"...But that's it, I am not able to run Gparted or anything...Even in win7 , it said "Installing software for devices" and later on nothing happens...This is not shown in File Manager

I would like to know how to format and make it usable..

Also , since HDDs involve some amount of power , is it wise to connect it to another computer, I mean there wont be an overload or spike or something like that?? We have 220 Volt electricity in my country... Aso logically speaking there has to be a limit I mean, you cant keep "chain loading" multiple HDD through USB Hubs ,right!!

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First: it connects to two USB slots because the power required by the drive is more than one slot will supply. You could connect it to a powered USB hub, so that the drive would be powered from the AC mains rather than from the computer.

Second: See whether the drive is recognized at all by the operating system. Start with the drive not connected. In a terminal window, run the program dmesg. Then connect the drive and run dmesg again. There should be a few lines of new output showing that the system recognizes the drive.

Maybe you should do this much and tell us what new dmesg output appears.

The size of the new drive is not relevant to this problem.

Just adding to what's already been said. Make sure the jumper settings on all hard drives are correct too.

I have an external case for a 2.5" internal IDE drive I used to use until I dropped it...
BUT it worked fine with certain caveats, as noted already:

1. use both USB cables plugged into the PC, or (preferably) get an external USB hub with its own wall-wart power supply. USB draws 5 volts DC and these drives take between 2 and 5 amps of current, normally more than your average PC-USB slots can provide. Do Not Use Unfiltered Mains Voltage!

2. the USB case should pre-select jumpers on the IDE connector, you should NOT have to use any jumpers on the drive. That said, if these were all connected internally using a master/slave cable you would just use the new one as master and old one as slave with the cable-select feature. If you look hard enough on a famous auction site you can find an IDE adapter (2.5" to 3.5")so make it fir said cable. good luck with that!

WELL, there's another solution if you're stuck on a laptop, with USB only: it's a multi-adapter cable with both 2.5" and 3.5" IDE connectors, and a SATA connector. It came with a SATA cable and an external P/S. $20+shipping It's primary intent is for drive recovery, but I use it for data transfers all the time. I did the same 40 to 160 upgrade a couple of years ago...

NOW, keep in mind that a drive -not spinning correctly- may not respond after recognition by the system, but the non-responsiveness can be a sign of drive damage, not just low current. Unless you've got irreplaceable information on the older drive, it's not worth it to pay hundreds or thousands to recover the data.

Good luck!

Thanks...

For a start, i wil try te following:

I forgot to mention that I am using a laptop ...The HDD came inside a Dell Inspiron 8600 Laptop purchased abt 6 yrs ago...The drive had some bad sectors (very few around 4 blocks not much MBs in it) ..I am sure i can milk the remaining 99% capacity..Before upgrading , I was using XP and Kubuntu and it was running quite well

1. I will download the diagnostic utility from ibm.com/harddrive which is mentioned in the HDD...Mine is Travelstar...

2. Reg recogntion , dmesg recognizes the USB and gives a product ID and Vendor ID ..I will post the exact details...

3.Someone had suggested deleting the volume...But in the first place the device is not accessible..Win 7 recognizes the disk but not able to initialize the disk

Sundry_50 also made a good point abt HDD capacity and old machines...I think there is some limitation in the BIOS..Even when I installed 160 GB , it was showing only 137 GB...I am having the latest BIOS for that machine...But I am using this USB in some newer machines Core2Duo , Pentium Dual Core which have relatively newer BIOS.




Thanks willl try and let you know