External Hard Drive

[Airpan]

OK, I am trying to install an external ADS Pyro Firewire Drive Kit... I have installed the drivers, and have tried (in vain) to get the computer to recognize the external drive, and it will not.

The questions I have are as follows:
1. I did not format the hard drive when I put it in the external case - is that necessary? If so, I am not sure how to do so - for what it is worth, the directions did not indicate to do so.

2. The computer itself is running Windows ME - I know, I know crappy OS, but the drive kit is compatible with that OS. Would it be worth it to try to upgrade the OS to perhaps Windows 2000? If so, can anyone point me in the right direction for doing that? I have done an in place install before but not sure that this would be the same.

3. Since the external drive is firewire and typically this should allow the computer to "see" the hardware almost instantly, does anyone suspect that perhaps the ports or the firwire itself are bad? I am in the process of trying to test the firewire itself, and once I can eliminate that I will try testing the ports on his computer with another firewire device.

This project is kicking my rear and I need to get this guy hooked up soon, as he is running out of room on his regular PC. I should also mention that this PC is being used in a digital recording studio and it houses a lot of recorded music and is currently hooked up to ADAT boards and other patch bays etc etc. I am safe in guessing that back up of all the files before we do anything is necessary.

Also the external drive was working when it had a CD burner in it... I took that out and put the hard drive in it.

 

[Airpan]

After reading some posts here (did a search on the same topic) I noticed that most people did indeed need to format the drive. I thought I should also include that the external drive has only firewire ports on the back of it (three of them) and the computer has two firwire ports on it. I am sincerely hoping that this issue is not an indication of bad ports... (

 

[Ploper001]

Hmmm, I have a 500GB external drive that I use with my laptop (woo for disk space ), and I just put it in the caddy, plugged it in (USB 2.0), XP recognised the device, and then I formatted with Partition Magic.

However, you wouldn't be able to format the drive through My Computer....if you don't have Partition Magic, you can use Computer Management -> Disk Management to create and format a partition on the drive I think.

BTW, Computer Management can be most easily found by right-clicking My Computer and choosing "Manage".

 

[wahnula]

BTW, Computer Management can be most easily found by right-clicking My Computer and choosing "Manage".

Correct. You should then be able to see your new drive, or Windows will pop up an "Initialize and Convert" wizard. Initialize, create a partition and format using the right-click context menu. No need to convert.

If you don't see it remove the drive and connect to the IDE bus of the mainboard directly and a spare power connector from your PSU. See if that works. If not, the problem is with the drive.

If you get the drive formatted, replace it into the case and try again. Report back w/ your results.

I am safe in guessing that back up of all the files before we do anything is necessary.

Like the cabbie on MAD TV, "AAA

http://WWWLLLWWAYS"

backup!!! This forum is littered with the carcasses of users who formatted the wrong drive...myself included!!!

Tony

 

[Airpan]

Thanks both of you - will report back after I test the firewire, the PC's firewire ports, and the device's ports. If those are all ok (God willing) I will then move on to the hard drive issue and will let you know how it goes... thanks for the help.

 

[Airpan]

OK... I have done the following things:

1. I opened the case and saw that the card housing the firewire ports had a power hookup on it... and nothing was plugged into it? Surely Dell didn't put the firewire ports in but not connect them to the power supply? Do they need to be connected to the power supply? I would think so.

2. The above being said, I went ahead and tried turning the external hard drive on and plugging in the firewire to all of the ports (two on PC three on unit) and nothing came up recognizing the device.

3. I am still in the process of making sure that the firewire itself isn't bad, but will proceed with my questions anyway in the event it isn't bad and there is another issue here.

If I can eliminate the actual wire not being the issue here, I am not really sure how to test the firewire ports themselves... as it is a card that plugs into the motherboard. Can anyone tell me how to test it on another computer? Does it just plug into the motherboard of there is an appropriate slot on the MB for it? Do I need to install it from the Add Hardware utility?

 

[Ploper001]

Perhaps you haven't got the drivers for the firewire card installed? Did the firewire (PCI I assume) card come with an installation CD?

Also, go to Device Manager (Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager in XP; Control Panel -> Device Manager in Vista) and see if anything has a yellow question mark (particularly anything relating to a PCI card or firewire card). If not, check for the firewire card in appropriate sections to see if it's been recognised and installed correctly.

 

[wahnula]

heck for the firewire card in appropriate sections to see if it's been recognised and installed correctly.

Good advice Ploper001. You can also get another card very cheaply to test:

http://3btech.net/ie13pcitofic.html

the card housing the firewire ports had a power hookup on it

As far as I know the PCI bus should supply power to the card, is it a standard Molex connector, like on the optical drives? More than likely it is a F/W header, if you have a F/W socket on the outside of the case it should be connected to that header or one on the MB.

Did you test the drive out of the case as I mentioned earlier? Connect it to the IDE port on the mainboard and see if it is visible in Disk Management. Yes, a new drive DOES need to be formatted!!!

Tony

 

[Airpan]

Well, here it is... the final verdict. As it turns out the firewire ports were not installed. However, we started getting the Blue Screen of Death when we tried to utilize the CDROM... so at this point, screw it. Upgrading to XP, replacing the hard drive in the PC (40 Gig) with 180 Gig, upgrading mem to 1 Gig and then worrying about getting the other peripherals running.

Thanks for all your help and if I get some weird stuff after all of the above will post back, but for now, easier to just start over. Honestly, it needs to happen anyway due to needing to upgrade recording software and can't do that with ME as the OS... most everything is now running best with XP. Thanks again! :O)