Recently I did something terrible to my laptop and can no longer use it. It had a 30gb hard drive (Toshiba MK3018gap) with a whole load of files I want on it. I purchased a Hard Drive External Case (local brand) with the following specs:

**USB Interface: USB 2.0 & USB 1.1
**IDE Interface: Complies with ATA/ATAPI-6

I have installed it onto my HP Pavillion 8606 (Win98SE) and all drivers installed properly (I checked the System Properties), but the problem is, it is not showing up in 'My Computer'. In System Properties under Disk Drives, I checked the properties of the laptop drive and on the 'settings' tab I changed the 'Options' to 'Removable' and then assigned a letter, restarted the comp. The 'E' drive showed up but only had 70 or so KB of empty space on it (not sure whether thats my laptop drive or not. I then uninstalled all drivers and then reinstalled the external drive, yet still not showing in 'My Computer'.

Any help will be sooo greatly appreciated. If I can't rectify this problem I'll be returning the External Case back to the shop - Thanks in advance

(NB: Also posted this in Windows 98 Family)

Now I don't know laptops, so they may do drives different, so I may be shooting blanks here.

Am I seeing it right that you have both drives in the Win98 machine?
If so, I would think when adding the laptop's it would need to have jumper set to slave, then since it's OS partition is a primary bootable, that may conflict with the one already in the rig. In other words, just setting the jumper to slave (and verifying in your BIOS) may not be good enough. You would have to make that laptop drive's partition not active. What would be easier is to just unhook your old drive in that Win98 rig and then substitute the lappie's, keeping it set to master. I would even put the same ribbon connector to it. I got two drives in one rig and I swap the ribbon when ever I want to switch them (I don't want any slave right setup now).

Now maybe you are already pulling the old drive (at least the ribbon out) so then I would not know what the problem would be.
Or if what I said about active & master/slave applies to the drives laptops use. I am not even sure they got jumpers on them like regular drives do. Just never bothered to check it out before, as I don't ever want a lappie. I can see all kinds of heat related problems with them. Can't add no fans. Oh well.
So maybe I am no help but others here know some stuff on laptops.

Game Rig....Web Rig.... 3rd Rig ___

B. How did you attached the Drive. USB?, Parallel,

C. What is the name and model # of the External Hard Drive case.?

Adzirk

When I first installed the drivers, in 'My Computer' the only drives that were there were the usual, floppy - A:, Hard Drive - C: and CDRom - D: (no laptop drive). When I went into the Device Manager to check to see if the laptop hard drive was showing up there (which it was, under Disk Drives) I then opened its Properties and on the 'settings' tab under 'Options' there were four options, 'Disconnect'; 'Sync Data Transfer'; 'Removable' and 'Int 13 Unit'. When I first installed the drivers all four options except 'Removavle', were all ticked. If I am correct I presume the reason why 'Removable' was not ticked is because that is for a floppy or cd drive with removable storage, correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway I decided to tick 'Removable' and then assigned a letter (E: - only possible when ticking the 'Removable' box), I then restarted the comp and in 'My Computer' the 'E:' drive was now there, but when I looked at its properties there was only 70 or so KB's of empty space. I then uninstalled all drivers and restarted.

I have the external drive case attached through USB port of my desktop computer and I don't think there is a way of changing it from Master to Slave (although in the installation manual it says to ensure it is set to Master). On the laptop hard drive the OS is WinXP and on the desktop hard drive is Win98SE - just in case you're interested.

The external drive case is a local brand from New Zealand and there is nothing on the internet about it.

So sorry for raving, but I'm hoping to have explained everything properly. Thanx once again.

It used to be that when you added an external drive to a Win98 SE system, you attached the drive and then booted the system and then the drivers were added. This was for parallel/scsi drives like Iomega Zip drives. Also removable. Technically your HDD has become a removable drive.

When USB came along....the process was reversed. IOW you install the drivers, shut down the system, connect the drive and then boot the system. That means the PNP now has something to use to find the proper drive configuration. Also, not all Win98SE systems were set up to recognise USB....see you bios (set-up) at POST and see if USB is on. I know this procedure works with Zip drive and with printers. Don't see why it wouldn't work with external HHD as well. But then again, I'm not the Hardware guru around here and we should probably get some input from those who are more hardware literate

I assume there is a CD rom to install drivers, etc. What name is on that. Maybe we can find something on the software. Also, even though it's a NZ local brand HD case, it is probably made by a known mfg...our man Ghouldini....is really good at ferreting out who really made these things.

HTH

Adzirk

Why don't you register as a LH Lurker...you can engage the PM feature and I do believe it will also let you attach a file to the bottom of a reply. As I said, I'm not really the person to deal with these hardware glitches...but we have several Lurkers who can help you.

Not absolutely sure that the attach feature works in all forums and for all users. But it's worth a try.

HTH

Adzirk

I am not familar with these external goodies myself, but I still see that if the hard drive which was in the computer is booting and you are trying to run the external too, they will both have an active partition with an OS (W98 & WXP) trying to be the boss. I always read when you add a 2nd hard drive to your system, it gets set as a slave with no active partitions on it. Dual booting setups are different, and I don't know that well either to comment, but if you are not disconnecting that computers drive to install the external as the master drive, I wouldn't be surprised it won't go.

Assuming the laptop (external) drive is properly installed to external case and all setup right, with the computer power pulled, take the ribbon out of the W98 hard drive and place that same ribbon into your XP/lappie/external thing. Also pull the W98 drive power cord. You can use that or any other power cord off the power supply then for the external case, unless it has it's own power hook up.
Now when you go boot your computer, it should only look at your lappie drive. Might have to go into BIOS to make sure it sees the drive right - usually auto detect does it.

A program like Partition Magic can easily set the lappie drive's XP partition to not active, so it wouldn't conflict with the W98 drive if you wanted to hook the lappie up as a slave drive to the system (no pulling of W98 ribbon). You would need to set jumper on lappie drive to slave. Assuming it has one. Them small lappie drives maybe don't have enough room for a manual jumper, ?. Like I said before, never seen one up close.

I only go by what I have seen building table top rigs with the bigger parts.

Game Rig....Web Rig.... 3rd Rig ___

I wonder if the USB has been properly activated in the BIOS.
Was the USB hdd ever formated? Windows will not see it until it is.
The old usb hdd I had I had to Hook up the usb drive then after windows 98SE booted up I installed the drivers. Rebooted and it showed up in My computer.
Make and model of the encloser being posted would be of help. Or a link to the manufactors website will do also.

The make and model of the external drive is as follows:

**DSE 2.5" Hard Drive External Case
**XH6768

Unfortunately as I have said in my previous posts, it is a local (New Zealand) brand, and there is no information on the internet about it as I have already searched. I even checked the manufacturers (DSE = Dick Smith Electronics) website (www.dse.co.nz) and there is nothing there either (although the website is just an online store). I have emailed them about my problem and am awaiting a reply.

Yes the USB is enabled in the BIOS, but I have noticed that the laptop drive does not show up anywhere in the BIOS, but does show in the Device Manager. Also I am unable to 'disconnect' the Win98 drive and connect the ribbon and power cord to the laptop drive as 1) I do not have an adapter cable and 2) there is nowhere to plug it into the external drive case.

Thanx

Hi all just registered, hoping to be able to add a file, doesn't look like I can, oh well.

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.filereader?40487936135de340273fc0a87f9906ee+EN/catalogs/DTS0001483

This may help give you an idea of what you are dealing with. Lists the drivers and the manual (pdf)

Adzirk

Thanks Adzirk for the link but there is nothing on the page about my external case, this is the page I had looked at http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/40491938083ee9f0273fc0a87f9906b7/Product/View/XH6768 and the drivers and manual there are the ones I have so maybe one of you may be able to pick up something I may have done wrong - thanx

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When I first installed the drivers all four options except 'Removavle', were all ticked. If I am correct I presume the reason why 'Removable' was not ticked is because that is for a floppy or cd drive with removable storage, correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway I decided to tick 'Removable' and then assigned a letter (E: - only possible when ticking the 'Removable' box), I then restarted the comp and in 'My Computer' the 'E:' drive was now there, but when I looked at its properties there was only 70 or so KB's of empty space.

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Well I repeated the above steps again as I wanted to check someting out. I right clicked on the 'E' drive and clicked format (as I wanted to see what the capacity was) well it is 28600.0MB, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is 28.6GB, right?? Well thats the right size of the hard drive, problem now is if I format everything will be erased - I don't wanna lose anything on the drive.

What file system is the XP drive in ?

If it's NTFS, it'll be a while before 98 ever has anything to do with it. It can't read NTFS.

LurkHere

I was under the impression that you didn't want to lose the files, etc on the drive and wanted to either save them or move them out of harms way.

When you right click and see that format line, what else do you see. You should see an OPEN as well. If you click on that, it should open the drive and you should be able to see the files and folders..well maybe.

OR... from the Win 98 Desktop,double left click on My Computer. When the window opens you should see all of your drives. Double left click on the one you think is the laptop drive (E) or whatever.

That should tell you if Win98 is able to read the drive...we know it sees the drive...now does anything show up on the drive.

The other possibility is to open a program or application that is common to both systems. Open it in Win98....like Word or Works or whatever. Then go to File to open an existing file. Browse to the drive in question (E?) and double click to open it and see if it opens and if any files or folders are visible.

If they are, the drive is probably Fat32 and will at least let you move stuff to a safe place. If not...well let's cross that bridge later.

HTH

Adzirk

All I care about is retrieving most of the files off the WinXp drive and once I do that then I'd be more than happy to format the drive which will then enable me to use the drive as a slave (I hope).

Yes Renovator, the drive is NTFS, so I'm guessing that's a problem.

I have already opened the drive to see what files there are and there is about 70+kb of empty space. I opened MSWord and tried to open a file, but nope there are none, and I know for a fact there are Word files on that hard drive..

I thought I'd try a couple of things. First thing I did was I borrowed a friends desktop PC with WinXp on it and connected the External Case to it. WinXP didn't pick it up at all, I even tried installing the drivers from the disk (which it says you don't need to with WinXp). The External Case's orange light was flashing as if it was trying to do something (when I had it in my Win98 Desktop it flashed a while and then turned green and stayed green).

Second thing I thought I'd try, although I never finished, was I thought I'd install WinXP on my desktop (overwriting Win98), I got so far into it then windows gave me an option to install it in either of my partitions. The laptop drive had the 28.6GB partition with the 70+kb being unpartitioned (which is what I'm seeing in the drive when I check it's properties) and the desktop HD was the other partition. I wasn't sure what to do so I did nothing.

I hope I'm answering everyone questions right.

Once again thankyou all very much

I decided I had to give up either the files on the laptop drive or the desktop, so I chose to give up the files on the desktop and I installed WinXP, the external case now works (I have no idea why it doesn't work with my friends desktop) so I now have an E: drive and can open it and see all folders.

But I now have another problem. A lot of the files that I wanted to save were in 'My Documents' under my personal login (I'm computer administrator)and I had made it private so that no one else could see my files - including me, on the ex-win98 computer!!! Will I have to boot from this drive (I have no idea how to or even if it's possible) so I can log into winxp to 'share' my files? I've tried copying the folder with my files in it and "access is denied"

Once again thankyou all for your help

search for a 44 pin cable to a 40 pin ATA adapter
<http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=44+pin+cable+to+a+40+pin+ATA+adapter>

this will simplify matters.
then install the drive as a slave on an Windows XP or 2000 NTFS file system or FAT32.to configure the Toshiba notebook drive you will need to jumper the two top pin on the end of the right side.

here is a link to the site with the Spec sheet for jumper info-page 121.

<http://sdd.toshiba.com/cda/localcache/820000000ac3000003d70000000100000000.pdf>

or just use the External case and Windows XP should see it even if its formated with FAT32.Windows XP and 2000 systems formated with FAt32 can still still NTFS partitions.

Don't know if this will be much help, but here are a few bits and pieces you might consider.

1. According to the big players(Iomega, etc) in external HDD...booting from an external USB or Firewire drive is not possible...no model no how..at this time. Made the assumption that for all intents and purposes the new enclosure made the new drive an external usb hdd...so went looking for support info.

2. Assume that you did try to access the second drive from the administrators control panel and that you did set up your personal files with the old info, etc.....on the new install of WinXP.

3. This may be reaching a little, cause I've never heard of this being done exactly like this, but suppose you assumed that the Laptop drive was a "The old computer" and you used the transfer wizard to move the files from one drive to the other.

There are a few KB articles that address how to do this...

HOW TO: Use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard with a Wizard Disk in Windows XP

and

HOW TO: Use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard By Using the Windows XP CD-ROM

Obviously, I have no idea whether it will work...but...I think it may be worth a try.

There are also some administrative things for lost passwords etc that you could try...but it may be that the new install doesn't recognise the old installs files...which is why you might have to migrate the setting, etc.

Just a thought.

HTH

Adzirk

Thankyou all sooooo much for your input. Thankyou Adzirk for your research.

I have finally achieved my mission, and a long mission it was. I have successfully taken all files off of the 'laptop'HD, copied them to CD and then formatted the drive, so I can now use it as a slave, well in the terms of placing important files on anyway.

The external case was no problem once I had installed windowsxp on my PC (I am considering putting Windows 98SE back). Initially I did not want winxp but to be able to get the external case 'recognized' that is what I had to do. I am not sure whether win98SE will recognize it now, but maybe since the drive no longer has windows on it this will not be an issue (oh well I'll have to revert back to winxp if win98 doesn't recognize the drive).

Once again I totally appreciate all help you guys have given me, I read, and printed out, all your posts. I will definately be back as no doubt I will have some other problems in the future - thanks again.

PS. Oh I do have a weee problem with another comps hard drive, it has two installations of winxp home, how do I get rid of one (which seems to be unusable). I have disabled the startup screen which asks which OS I want to use, but that doesn't get rid of the OS - should I make this a new post?

Lisa