USB External Hard drive not recognized???

joker

I want to back up that 500 gig hard drive in my server with an external drive. I plug a drive in that I got on loan and it says “Won’t recognize USB device”. I thought it might be a drive issue so I plugged in the hard drive w/ enclosure that I bought and I get the same thing. I have made sure that the jumper setting is set to master on the external hard drive. I have used this Hard drive and enclosure on a running machine elsewhere.

I uninstall the driver from device manager and let it reinstall software automatically and nothing. Properties show the device is enabled and working properly but it is Unknown Device.

I tried the two different drives on my main machine running Vista and also on my server running Windows Home Server. I have tried different USB ports on and off the main boards on both machines. I have plugged a thumb drive into these ports to make sure the USB ports are working properly and everything is good.

Any suggestions?

**Jason** · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:41:47 Post Subject:

Not sure really... But have you tried other jumper settings? Or maybe no jumper?

T-shirt · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:26:01 Post Subject:

Do you have an XP machine you can try it on?
My thought is the driver doesn't register properly with vista or Home server.
The other factors would be a power problem in the enclosure or a bad USB port.

edvallie · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:26:02 Post Subject:

T-shirt · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:29:24 Post Subject:

That's a possibility too.
I don't think I ever jumper an external drive, or at least not a USB one. (trying to remember about the eSATA)

knight0334 · Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:41:48 Post Subject:

You try more cowbell??

**Hellfire** · Moderator Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 2968

Instead of setting the jumper to Master, set it to CS.

What external hard drive enclosure is it?

Is the hard drive new or one that was used previously? If it was used previously, make sure there isn't more than one partition on it, as I have had that cause issues before.

Also check to see whether it is showing up under Computer Management (in Control Panel/Administrative Tools). It might need to be "initialized" depending on the state the hard drive is in.

(TSC)Bender · Rated PG-13 Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 29

Sounds like its a problem with either the drive or the enclosure. Easiest way to test the drive would be to plug it in directly and see if it is recognized. If it is recognized fine that way, that also allows you to play around with the partitions and whatnot that could be causing your problems. I recommend trying that and the Cable Select jumper setting as was recommended previously.

Methious · Rated PG-13 Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 42

This might sound a little weird, but I have like 6 enclosures, couple of them recognize inside windows as an unknown device, then I remember to enable them with the key that unlocks the electronics and they install fine.

Check them against an XP Machine, of the 6 I have only 2 new ones run with Vista, and their USB/E-Sata/internal hot dock from Tagan.

Running Ghost against them to clone though, when I get to the clone over the USB features like system restore have quit working. Bots fine and all, all the files are there, just some stuff doesn't work, back off of Ghost 12, and boot from a disk and use Ghost 9 flawless copy.

Go Figure older/better

joker · Posted: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:11:32 Post Subject:

Thanks for the replies. I have tried the CS jumper setting and more cowbell and neither worked as of yet. I have since said screw it and put a RAID controlller card in the server and loaded the machine with hard drives. So far so good.

How many hard drives does it take to make yourself power limited on your system? let's say with a 600 watt power supply.