Need help with external hard drives at DVinfo.net

Dylan Couper · June 28th, 2006, 02:17 PM

Could use some help!
Just bought an external Firewire hard drive enclosure, and Seagate hard drive, seperatly. No instructions included with either. Plugged the hard drive into the enclosure, plug the enclosure via firewire into my PC (running WinXP), turned it on. I got the "gling" of the firewire connecting, but no popup in windows recognizing it, nor anything else indicating I've got another drive.

Um....

Help? :)
I'd call the computer store where I got it, but there are some communications issues...

Henry Cho · June 28th, 2006, 03:26 PM

dylan,

here's the way i attach my external every time. keep the firewire cable unplugged, either from the drive or to the computer. turn on the drive FIRST, before you connect. wait a couple of seconds for the drive to initiate itself, THEN connect the drive to the computer. repeat this procedure any time the drive is powered down or disconnected. even following this procedure, sometimes the external drive does not play friendly once in a while. in this scenario, reboot the computer with the drive detached, and follow the procedure outlined above.

also, it's my experience that these drives run better on their own bus, meaning if you have other kinds of firewire devices attached to the computer, like a dv deck, and they're on the same firewire bus as the external drive, powering up and powering down the device, the dv deck in my example, may cause problems. the solution would be to get a pci firewire card. this will provide another set of firewire ports and avoid potential conflicts.

Christopher Lefchik · June 28th, 2006, 05:32 PM

Dylan,

Did you, uh, format the drive? ;-)

To do this in Windows XP, open Control Panel, and go to Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Your external drive should show up here. Right click on it, and choose "Format."

Chris Barcellos · June 28th, 2006, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christopher Lefchik

Dylan,

Did you, uh, format the drive? ;-)

To do this in Windows XP, open Control Panel, and go to Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Your external drive should show up here. Right click on it, and choose "Format."

I agree with Chritopher. Had the same thing happen with my USB drive when I made it. Followed the set up Christophor indicated.

Dylan Couper · June 28th, 2006, 08:13 PM

Even dumber, looked at the drive upside down when I set the thingamajiggy to MASTER vs. SLAVE. :)

Undid the whole thing, popped it in the other way, worked perfectly. :)

June 28th, 2006, 02:17 PM	#1
Dylan Couper Wrangler Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia Posts: 8,314	Need help with external hard drives Could use some help! Just bought an external Firewire hard drive enclosure, and Seagate hard drive, seperatly. No instructions included with either. Plugged the hard drive into the enclosure, plug the enclosure via firewire into my PC (running WinXP), turned it on. I got the "gling" of the firewire connecting, but no popup in windows recognizing it, nor anything else indicating I've got another drive. Um.... Help? :) I'd call the computer store where I got it, but there are some communications issues... __________________ Need to rent camera gear in Vancouver BC? Check me out at camerarentalsvancouver.com

June 28th, 2006, 08:13 PM	#5
Dylan Couper Wrangler Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia Posts: 8,314	Even dumber, looked at the drive upside down when I set the thingamajiggy to MASTER vs. SLAVE. :) Undid the whole thing, popped it in the other way, worked perfectly. :) __________________ Need to rent camera gear in Vancouver BC? Check me out at camerarentalsvancouver.com

June 28th, 2006, 03:26 PM	#2
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	dylan, here's the way i attach my external every time. keep the firewire cable unplugged, either from the drive or to the computer. turn on the drive FIRST, before you connect. wait a couple of seconds for the drive to initiate itself, THEN connect the drive to the computer. repeat this procedure any time the drive is powered down or disconnected. even following this procedure, sometimes the external drive does not play friendly once in a while. in this scenario, reboot the computer with the drive detached, and follow the procedure outlined above. also, it's my experience that these drives run better on their own bus, meaning if you have other kinds of firewire devices attached to the computer, like a dv deck, and they're on the same firewire bus as the external drive, powering up and powering down the device, the dv deck in my example, may cause problems. the solution would be to get a pci firewire card. this will provide another set of firewire ports and avoid potential conflicts.

June 28th, 2006, 05:32 PM	#3
Christopher Lefchik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: US Posts: 1,152	Dylan, Did you, uh, format the drive? ;-) To do this in Windows XP, open Control Panel, and go to Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Your external drive should show up here. Right click on it, and choose "Format."