Another frustrated user... can't get WinXP PC to assign drive letter to notebook disk
I've seen several posts on TechSpot forums about getting WinXP's disk management to see (i.e., assign a drive letter to) an external USB/IDE device that was already formatted and contained data. Sounds like either a very persistent WinXP problem or (also possible) a widespread user education issue that MS hasn't done a good job in meeting. Here's one such thread from 1.5 years ago:
https://www.techspot.com/vb/printthread.php?t=8213
I'm running into the same problem trying to get the data off the 2.5" HD of a moribund notebook onto my desktop PC. Both are WinXP. I bought a NexStar enclosure at the advice of a local PC store service wonk. Same symptoms exactly: plug & play beeps when I connect it, drive mfr & model info show up under the USB hub entry in device mgr (view by connection), but no drive letter and no entry in disk management.
I've been scouring the web for insights, and so far have found no smoking gun. The possible explanations include
- exceeding a default PC limit of 4 IDE drives. My desktop has one HD (which came partitioned into a large internal drive C: and a small "recovery" volume D
, DVD-ROM, CD-ROM burner, and floppy drive,). Not sure how these are counted, whether partitions count toward the total, and whether an IDE drive repackaged as a USB external drive counts toward the total.
- power or bandwidth limits on the USB hub in question. I doubt this, because the drive is alone on the hub and device manager is able to access it well enough to get its ID info, and the hub has 500 mA available. OTOH, the drive *is* spec'd at 500 mA, 5 V, which is cutting it kinda close. Any thoughts on this? The enclosure I'm using has a double USB cable for use if necessary and also accepts an external power source which should be 5 V, at least 1 A. Maybe I should try one of these solutions...
Any other thoughts out there? Has anyone had and solved this problem using a USB enclosure?
