With XP you should be able to format the drive under Disk Management.

 

should disc management see drive, if it shows up as "USB" under disc drives in divice manager. So far I can't see the drive anywhere except under device manager.

in run, what do I type in to bring this utility up, thanks.

 

Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management.

 

You need to understand what the jumper settings are for that drive. There is a such thing as Primary Slave, but not as a jumper setting. Primary refers to the primary IDE channel and Slave refers to the jumper setting on the drive. So 'Primary Slave' is a mixing of terms that should not be related when you are using the drive on a USB interface.

When using an IDE/SATA adapter I think your safest bet is to set the drive as Master. Master or Cable Select is always used with a single drive when hooked up internally on an IDE channel, so that is what I'd suggest as a single drive with an adapter.

 

under universal serial bus controllers
shows as: USB mass storage device

under disc drives
shows as: USB Device

No yellow, says the device is working properly, will not show under my computer and under

disk management, just shows the primary hdd, as it does under device manager. shows the primary hdd - and under that, USB device. But nothing in disk management.

So is the device dead, not working > what do I do now. I did your advice above and switched the jumpers around, when the jumpers are in other configs, I will get yellow error showing next to the device under ""serial bus controllers" and then nothing under disc drives, so that is what I know and all the details I have done so far.

 

I can't tell for certain from your description... but when you look in Disk Management, look at the lower pane (which lists physical disks) to verify if you see a physical disk number appear/disappear as you plug/unplug the USB cable.

If the drive is unformatted or corrupt, only the physical disk will appear in the lower pane of Disk Management

/* edit */
The fact you say USB Mass Storage and a Disk Drive appear in Device Manager makes me guess the physical disk is being detected and will appear in the lower pane of Disk Management. You can also take a look HERE and look at the Troubleshooting section for a Disk Management snapshot example of an unformated physical disk that appears http://img152.imageshack.us/i/uninitdiskhighlighted2.jpg/

 

in device manager, under the sub folder "disc drive" labeled as USB Device. In diskmgmt, shows nothing in the lower pane or anywhere else, I feel the hdd is damaged and ready to be destroyed and I am about to take the drill and double tap two holes into the aluminum alloy coated magnetizable platter and be done with it.

I have diskmgmt open right now, using the same adapter, except this time using it on a sata drive, device manager sees it and actually labels the drive instead of just USB device, in disk management, the lower pane it shows and currently Formatting it. I am very close to declare this hdd for destruction but it bothers me that I see it as I said above but very limited.

LookinAround I did try, powering it off, and turning it back on to see a change in diskmgmt, but nothing, anyways thanks for the help. I am still open to suggestion


Also the details for the HDD, I had listed above wrong specs about it anyways so here it all is.

Hitachi Deskstar ATA/IDE
Capacity 250GB
Model: HDT722525DLAT80
Oct-2006

 

Oh. Since you note the problem disk only appears as "USB Device" in Device Manager.... I just had a thought... as you've already tried changing the jumper settings per SNGX's advice?

Something else you could check (that unfortunately i think may only help prove the drive is dead). Connect the USB adapter with NO disk drive attached to it. Do you still get the same disk name "USB Device"???

fyi.. I'm not stating the following as "gospel" but rather just based on the way i've usually seen Windows work. The disk's vendor name one sees displayed in Device Manager is derived from the disk's "Hardware IDs" that a vendor programs into their disk drive when they make them. To see the disk's Hardware IDs, you can rt click the disk in Device Manager, select Properties->Details, select Hardware IDs on the pull down menu. Here's an example snapshot of the Hardware IDs for a external Seagate. (click the thumbnail)

​

So i wonder if you simply get "USB Device" in your device manager when no disk drive is attached to the USB adapter. So no physical disk is responding to provide vendor specific Hardware IDs! It's just the USB adapter itself that responds to windows causing it to load a disk driver

/* edit */
If you see the hardware IDs, you can select all and copy/paste them into next post. i'd be curious to see them if you can

 

Son-of-a-gun! Just fyi for anyone who might happen to read this thread in the future

Re: IDE/SATA to USB adapters and disk problems

I'm now back home (i was travelling before) and just had a chance to test with my own Vantec IDE/SATA to USB adapter. YES! The adapter, itself, is responding to Windows and causing the disk driver to be loaded even when no disk is connected to the adapter!. When no hard drive is attached to the USB adapter, my Device Manager also only displays "USB Device" (just as in fluffykitten's case).

You can compare the thumbnail snapshot below to the one above. The one below is the IDE/SATA to USB adapter connected but with NO disk attached to it. Note the disk name appears as "USB Device" and the Hardware IDs have no vendor specific data

​