Having Trouble with External Hard Drive

[Alphonse43]

I've had 5 or 6 drive enclosures over the years and found most of the problems come from the encloser itself or the USB connection. I now use a R-Driver USB 2.0 to IDE Cable, these also come with a Sata connection now. I have never had a connection problem since changing a few years back. Here's a R-Driver review.
http://www.dansdata.com/rdriver.htm
Alphonse43

 

[choucove]

Depending upon the external enclosure, you may not be able to return it for replacement if you go opening it up. Just a word of caution. Then again, as stated above, it may be a way to test and see if it is the physical drive itself or just the enclosure that has caused these problems.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

Wow... all this to avoid returning a drive?

I am all for fixing stuff, but in this case, I would just send it back and get a new one.

 

[rdm01]

I don't think returning it is really an option anymore is the thing, it was a sale item, about 6 months ago. It was from a smaller, non-national, shop. I think the best, and easiest approach is to just get a new enclosure. Could anyone point me to a good value in enclosures?

 

[SignBurst PCs]

I see...

What type of drive is it? IDE or SATA?

 

[rdm01]

IDE I believe

 

[steveimage]

Is the drive made by Maxtor? They are notorious to have problems. Western Digital brand is much more reliable.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

IDE will have a approx 40 pins plus separate 4 pin power connector.

SATA has a single "L" shape adapter plus either an "L" shape or 4 pin power adapter.

Be sure that you know which type of drive you have when shopping for enclosures. There are MANY different brands. Most will do the job fine. If I were you, I would shop newegg.com and read the reviews carefully before deciding on a particular model.

In addition to the enclosure idea, you could also use one of these. It will connect IDE AND SATA to a USB port. This comes in pretty handy.