My computers are not recognizing my SATA external Harddrive

[Mr Blue Sky]

Hey ya'll,
I keep having a problem with my computers recognizing some WD2500 SATA hard drives that I have installed in an external case. I've tried different jumper settings and trying to go to control panel and looking under computer management but they are not showing up at all. I'm running XP SP2, and haven't been able to have much luck with this. Am I missing something?
Thanks for any help.

 

[tipstir]

Did you buy the right case for the SATA? There are different types some for IDE that handle up to 400GB and there are the ones for SATA and 2.5HD for laptops.

Does the SATA work without the case by installing it into the PC?

 

[Mr Blue Sky]

Yes I bought an SATA case. It had the right cables for SATA and I'm new at this with SATA. My computer is 5 years old and doesn't have SATA connections on the motherboard, so I don't know about that.

 

[joked u 2]

is it usb or firewire? when you turn on the drive can you hear it spin up?

 

[Tedster]

A 5 year old computer requires a PCI controller card for SATA.

This is kind of pointless as the throughput will be lessened due to the PCI interface. You'ld be better off saving the hard drives for a newer system and keeping IDE/ATA 133 drives on your current system.

 

[tipstir]

Yes I bought an SATA case. It had the right cables for SATA and I'm new at this with SATA. My computer is 5 years old and doesn't have SATA connections on the motherboard, so I don't know about that.

System just can't support that SATA External, you'll need more modern equipment meaning a new PC or just build one yourself good to learn how it's done. If you like working on your Car then you'll enjoy building a PC from start to finish. You should have got a regular Ultra ATA 100 or 133 HDD and a external case for it. That would work, I've test those on old PIII 900Mhz that I've built from spare parts.

 

[Mr Blue Sky]

System just can't support that SATA External, you'll need more modern equipment meaning a new PC or just build one yourself good to learn how it's done. If you like working on your Car then you'll enjoy building a PC from start to finish. You should have got a regular Ultra ATA 100 or 133 HDD and a external case for it. That would work, I've test those on old PIII 900Mhz that I've built from spare parts.

tipster you may be right about my system I'm using. I actually did build this system 5 years ago, and am planning to build myself a new monster when funds become more available. One thing I'm not sure of though, last night I was trying the hard drive on a friends Dell Inspiron which is about 5 months old, running XP media, 2 gb ram, and just a super laptop. I had the same results then.
I'm running USB 2.0 with these drives. They didn't have firewire option. They do sound like they spin when I fire them up, but the computer never beeps when I plug them in like it does with my two other externals.
I probably will just save these for my new system, but it drives me nuts not to be able to make my computer recognise and use them until then.