I have an old 3½" IDE hard drive which has been on a shelf for a couple of years. I borrowed an adaptor to connect it to my computer (Windows 7) via the USB input.
When I power the drive up the disc spins and I hear a few clicks. There are lights to show that the USB is live and connected, but my computer does not see it as an external drive.
Anyone have an idea what I can do next? Is the drive just junk?
On old drives in the past, I used to be able to warm them up by sitting them on the dash of my car for a few hours. You could give that a shot. But once the drive would cool back down, I’d have to do it again, so it only works for a bit of time.
Be sure to copy anything off of the drive if this works for you.
It’s 10 degrees C outside. Maybe I’ll try a radiator:)
The USB adaptors can be fussy… as in you remove the USB cable and plug it back in to try it again. leave the drive powered on.
Also the 3.5 with 40 pin wouuld be required to be set to master…
The trick is to give the drive power for a 1-2 seconds BEFORE you connect the usb cable. You can disconnect the usb from the computer, or the cable from the drive, it doesn’t make a difference, just give the drive a moment to figure itself out before letting the computer pester it with demands (which it does as soon as you connect the data cable).
This wouldn’t be an issue for an internally mounted drive since it would start receiving power at the same time the motherboard (mb) did. So, by the time the mb got itself figured out and starts lookign for attached devices, the hd has gotten itself figured out and is listening for demands. With an externally connected drive, the system can be already up and running before the drive has power, so it’s receiving commands even before it’s able to do anything.
Imagine how you’d respond if somebody woke you out of a sound sleep and immediately started asking questions. “Wake up. What’s the state capitol? What did you eat at your last meal? Where’s (spouse/friend/relative/etc.)? What are you doing today?” and the like.
If your computer doesn’t have plug and play support you may have to manually add the drive. If you cannot get it started using previous advice let me know and I’ll walk you through that.
Sounds like you are adding CHS… are you going to choose the modulation as MFM too ? USB doesn’t need anything like manually adding a drive…
What can happen is that if there is no (working) partition then nothing shows up in My Computer, it just shows up in Computer Management and device manager as a hard drive.
Tried various sequences of plugging in/powering up.
Drive is set to master - it was a master in a previous life
Tried that
Please
It doesn’t show up n my computer. A standalone drive that I also have works just fine.
Thanks for the help so far - maybe it needs adding manually. Does it make a difference that it is loaded with Widows Vista?
USB adapter show HD just like it was a memory stick.
your drive controller isn’t controlling it and doesn’t need to be set…
let the drive be powered up and spinning well before USB cable connection.
have you used this adapter successfully in Win 7?
No - I only borrowed it yesterday and it has not worked for me. The guy who owns it says it worked for him.
If any IDE drive is not the “C” drive, make it a slave. I have been told that you can’t have two ‘master’ HD’s on one OS. IDE, SATA or SSD or any combination, only one “C” drive and if an IDE is jumpered as ‘master’ and is not the “C” drive, it’s not gonna work.
Also needs to be the same format as the rest of the system if the host is FAT, the added HD needs to be a FAT format. If the host is NTFS, it may read a FAT drive, I have never tried to do it.
I could be totally wrong. May get in the junk drawer and play around tomorrow.
If the IDE drive is an working “C” drive but the BIOS picks your normal “C” drive, then the IDE drive may not show up. Not sure about that
I have had SSD + SATA + IDE all connected to Win 7 Pro 64 bit and all worked. The IDE was connected with an adapter pigtail so it could connect to a SATA port. I also had to use an old Power Supply as my big rig does not have any IDE ports on the MB.
Sorry, this is poor advice. The IDE drive in question is in an external chassis connected via USB, and will therefore need to be jumpered as a “Master”, as others have said upthread.
Again, this is incorrect. NTFS and FAT drives can coexist on any current Windows system without problem. *[“Current” meaning Windows 2000 or later.]
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Does it show up in “Disk Management”? [Accessed via Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management] This should show even disks whose formatting is not recognized by the OS, and as such is a useful diagnostic tool.
No, it shouldn’t matter.
Oh well - that didn’t find the drive either. Thank’s Antonius Block and the others, but it looks as if it’s time to give up.
This is actually what I was going to suggest, so that’s out too. 
I know this sounds silly, but have you tried plugging it into a different USB port?
Another option is to open up the computer and add it as a slave drive just to get your files. I’m guessing you are aware of that option and trying to avoid it…but just in case!
I have tried three different USB ports (Two USB2 and one USB3)
The drive is IDE and the computer SATA so I can’t add it as a slave drive.
Thanks again for the suggestions though.
I had to boot from a bootable USB thumb drive the other day, and it didn’t work in a port at the machine’s front side. Tried it at one of the back ports, and voila, it booted. Don’t know why this was, but try the drive in one of the back ports, maybe it’s a similar problem.
Is there a power supply with this adapter, or is it trying to power the drive via the USB cable? I would hope that all 3.5" adapters have separate power supplies, but I’m willing to believe that there are some cheap ones out there…
Even 2.5" adapters can be problematic without external power. A number of them try to cheat and use two USB cables to get more power from the host PC.
Other than that, your best be would be to connect it to a “real” IDE port (which I realize your computer does not have).
If you post the model number, someone can let you know if the drive is new enough to be LBA, or if it is an ancient CHS drive that will need an equally ancient adapter.
Ah, good idea, Kennedy. I did have the AC adaptor that came with my usb adaptor die a while back. Since then, I’ve been using one of the extra power connectors of my pc’s power supply (it’s one of those fancy ones with modular cables, so adding a molex connector isn’t a problem).
So, if the drive doesn’t show up in disk management (also available in the computer management console described upthread), that means the drives onboard controller is dead or simply not getting power.