External USB 2.0 Drives

**jimmm33** · March 16th, 2004, 06:36 AM

I bought two Enermax 2.5'' USB 2.0 drive enclosures and two Toshiba 60GB laptop drives for a customer. I put the drives in the enclosure and plugged one of them in. The drive didn't show in Disk Manager. I thought I might need to format 1st so I hooked up the drive with an 2.5 to 3.5 ide converter. The drive shows and I formatted and put back in the enclosure. When I try to transfer data to the drive I get "Cannot Copy: filename. Connot find the specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and file name."

Both enclosures do this. I Thought it might be my install of XP gone bad, so I loaded up an old drive with XP sp1 and tried it. Same thing.

Do I have two bad enclosures or am I missing something?

**kato2274** · March 16th, 2004, 07:29 AM

Originally Posted by jimmm33

I bought two Enermax 2.5'' USB 2.0 drive enclosures and two Toshiba 60GB laptop drives for a customer. I put the drives in the enclosure and plugged one of them in. The drive didn't show in Disk Manager. I thought I might need to format 1st so I hooked up the drive with an 2.5 to 3.5 ide converter. The drive shows and I formatted and put back in the enclosure. When I try to transfer data to the drive I get "Cannot Copy: filename. Connot find the specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and file name."

Both enclosures do this. I Thought it might be my install of XP gone bad, so I loaded up an old drive with XP sp1 and tried it. Same thing.

Do I have two bad enclosures or am I missing something?

my guess would probably be that the drives are not getting enough juice in the enclosures. . . . . I went through pretty much the same thing. I had an enclosure and it would work fine with smaller drives but the larger drive I had 20GB just wasn't getting enough juice even passing through the ps2 connection.

**jimmm33** · March 16th, 2004, 11:35 AM

Well I RMA'd the enclosures.

I really need two models that work well. Does anyone have a recommendation of an enclosure? Preferably, models available from newegg?

**jimmm33** · March 16th, 2004, 05:29 PM

The machine I am using is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I did some digging and found some problems with USB drives and this board. Here for example:

http://www.ocia.net/reviews/usbext/K...External.shtml

Can anyone confirm this? Did I just RMA enclosures for the wrong reason? Will they work for my customer? I don't think the customer has and Nforce2 board.

I would like to either order new enclosures or cancel the RMA by morning. I am going to set up another machine with a different chipset to see what happens.

Someone please give me some input.

**jimmm33** · March 16th, 2004, 06:16 PM

I found this:

http://www.everythingusb.com/forums/...hlight=nforce2

It seems there is an incompatibility with the Nforce2 chipset and the gl811usb chipset. I updated the BIOS and mobo drivers. Sure enough, the Enermax enclosures have that chipset.

Here the million dollar question.

What enclosures DONT have that chipset?

**soupordave** · March 17th, 2004, 03:27 AM

Originally Posted by jimmm33

I bought two Enermax 2.5'' USB 2.0 drive enclosures and two Toshiba 60GB laptop drives for a customer. I put the drives in the enclosure and plugged one of them in. The drive didn't show in Disk Manager. I thought I might need to format 1st so I hooked up the drive with an 2.5 to 3.5 ide converter. The drive shows and I formatted and put back in the enclosure. When I try to transfer data to the drive I get "Cannot Copy: filename. Connot find the specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and file name."

Both enclosures do this. I Thought it might be my install of XP gone bad, so I loaded up an old drive with XP sp1 and tried it. Same thing.

Do I have two bad enclosures or am I missing something?

I would highly recommend getting a case with both USB and Firewire connections and use the Firewire connection when ever possible. Firewire is a lot better for hard drives, it supplies more power, can be daisy chained so one port can serve many drives, Win98 and up has built in driver support and almost always transfers data faster then USB 2.0. I have a Compucable FireXpress 250DX and am vary happy with it. The plastic case opens easy without tools and holds at least a 12.5mm thick drive, if you swap drives often that helps. The Aluminum FireXpress 250SDX is slimmer (up to 9.5mm drives) if it that serves you better.
http://www.compucable.com/firewire/e...usb2_body.html
http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_...roducts_id/621
Hitachi Travelstar drives have a utility called "Feature Tool" that gives users direct control over the Advanced Battery Life Extender power settings. This has made mine work without a power supply on all controllers I've tried, but I've haven't tried an Nforce2 yet.
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/library/apm.htm
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/library/able.htm

**confus-ed** · March 17th, 2004, 05:01 AM

Originally Posted by kato2274

my guess would probably be that the drives are not getting enough juice in the enclosures. . . . . I went through pretty much the same thing. I had an enclosure and it would work fine with smaller drives but the larger drive I had 20GB just wasn't getting enough juice even passing through the ps2 connection.

Mmmm ... so use a powered usb hub ? maybe here too ? ... how much are they $10-15 ish ? ...

**davelar3212** · March 17th, 2004, 09:52 AM

I had a similar problem with my external (no-name) usb drive. Turned out I had the jumper settings wrong and it was possibly compromised because the usb port was a 1.1 and once I installed a 2.0 card things were fine.

**Bigtimbre** · March 17th, 2004, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

Mmmm ... so use a powered usb hub ? maybe here too ? ... how much are they $10-15 ish ? ...

For USB 1.0 yes. The 2.0 ones I've seen start at about $30 bucks...

**BrianWilson** · July 12th, 2004, 08:53 AM

hello,

i've got a presario 2500, win xp (home) and an external Chronos HD-337-Combo (usb2 & firewire).

I've got no problems with usb2 (i have a pcmcia usb2.0 card).

But firewire doesn't detect!

Can someone help?

**NooNoo** · July 12th, 2004, 09:00 AM

Welcome to Windrivers Brian Wilson

In device manager, what do you have for 1394 ohci devices? Firewire is onboard the laptop or on the pcmcia card?

Some makes of external drive require external power as well. have you read this?

**BrianWilson** · July 12th, 2004, 11:29 AM

Hi,

In device manager i have:

IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers
.......Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

The firewire is from the laptop.

thanks

**Gabriel** · July 13th, 2004, 05:22 AM

Originally Posted by kato2274

my guess would probably be that the drives are not getting enough juice in the enclosures. . . . . I went through pretty much the same thing. I had an enclosure and it would work fine with smaller drives but the larger drive I had 20GB just wasn't getting enough juice even passing through the ps2 connection.

I have had a similar problems but I solved it with enclosure that has its own power supply. it seems that Amper level from within the USB socket are very limited. I had the problems even with IOMEGA external USB Hdd.

Cheers,
Gabriel

**NooNoo** · July 13th, 2004, 07:18 AM

brian did you understand the bit about needing external power?

**BrianWilson** · July 13th, 2004, 09:41 AM

Hi,

yes. fyi it's a chronos enclosure model HD-337-Combo and it's got its own external power.

using usb2 is no problems on it.

FYI, the firewire cable has the fat end on the enclosure and the thin (4pin?) end for the laptop.

cheers

Originally Posted by NooNoo

brian did you understand the bit about needing external power?