Unable to Initialize External Drive <> Bad to Worse

I bought a USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosure and a 180GB hard drive to use with my laptop. So I put the two together, and plugged it in. I hear the familiar Windows sound when it finds a new USB device. It was recognized as a USB 2.0 mass storage device. No problems so far.

It didn't show up in My Computer, which was expected, because it is a brand new drive. It does show up in Device Manager, and it does show up in Disk Management:



All I should have to do it right click on it, initialize, then once it is online, partition an format.

So I right click, choose initialize



Choose that disk,



The hourglass comes up for about 3 seconds like it is going to do something, and the light on the enclosure so it is accessing the disk,



But then nothing happens and it says "Not Initialized" still.



Anyone have any ideas? I have tried taking the hard drive out and formatting it in an actual computer, then put it back in the enclosure. Same problem.

I assume the disk came with a drivers/install disk and I assume you've already been there done that? What is that Win2K?

I'm just wondering how Windows is handling large hard drive support with a USB disk over 137GB. I've never experimented with your scenario. Disk documentation says nothing about it?

I am using XP Pro SP1a. There are no drivers to install for 2000/XP, it just is susposed to come up as a mass storage device, as it did. The hard drive enclosure is rated up to 300GB, but I will see if I can find something on a 137GB limit.

So, looks like that shouldn't be the problem...

Dumb question, but let's get the obvious out of the way. I assume you rebooted?

Rebooted, reinstalled USB ports, rebooted, reinstalled the device, rebooted.

Another question. You using any third party multi-boot proggies? For example, I use System Commander on a couple computers for multi OS boot. By default System Commander hides, NTFS drives and partitions to avoid conflicts. If you want to be able to see other compatable NTFS drives you have to manually go in and unhide them with System Commander.

Nope, no multi boot. Also, Partition Magic can see the drive, but can't partition it or format it.

Western Digital Diagonostics can also see the drive and can even pull the make and model off the drive, but can not access it to do any tests on it.



I have also tried swapping IDE cables and running the hard drive off another power supply to see it maybe that was the problem. No such luck.

Unrelated problem, but perhaps you might get some ideas from it:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardwar ... 90258.html

This might get you closer though:
http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread26938-1.html

Never occured to me to think about jumpers

Just tried missing with the BIOS settings reguarding USB, no luck. Have also tried all jumper positions and deleting everything out of device manager that even remotely smells like it might have to do with USB, still no luck.

Check this:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic17470.html

I notice from your images your cd/dvd drive letters didn't change.

If I follow the solution there, try a manual drive letter change on your cd/dvd drives.

Changed my CD-ROMS to Y: and Z:, deleted the USB drive, plugged it back in, waited for it to reinstall, still no dice.

Crap -- I was hoping that would do it. My assumption was that your USB drive was trying to map to drive D

At the moment I'm out of ideas.

Can you give us the make and model of your HDD Enclosure and HDD?

This is really odd...Windows XP is supposed to be able to automatically mount the HDD. Do you have a MP3 player or some other USB Storage device? (USB Key) That you can plug in and see if it works?

Also if possible you should try plugging in the enclosure on another computer and see if it works.

Well, I fould a BIOS update for my computer that was susposed to improve USB 2.0 capability so I tried that yesterday. While it was flashing it just skipped the "Back up old BIOS" step for lack of space on the floppy and went straight to "Erasing BIOS." I was crossing my fingers that it was the right one, and naturally, it wasen't.

So now my $3000 laptop just blinks random colored characters at me. But all is not lost, I can still hear Windows boot and once it has booted I can get to my shared drives from another computer in my compartment. So, if I can find the CORRECT BIOS, I should be able to reflash it and solve that. I don't have the BIOS number handy, but I did write it down. I will post that when I get home and hopefully I can at least get back to where I was.