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General discussion

Trouble accessing old drive (XP) on Vista computer

Jan 14, 2008 9:41AM PST

I have a Compaq Presario SR5113WM computer, that runs Windows Vista Home Basic. The factory hard drive is a SAT Seagate Barracuda 7200.10.

My last computer acquired a problem and would not boot the OS (XP) after we moved and unloaded it from the truck. I have lots of data on the secondary hard drive from that computer (on an IDE Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB) drive. I have back ups for a lot of that information, but not current enough. Yes, my mistake.

I attempted to install the WD drive in the newer Compaq, and though I tried many different variations for the 3 connector 40 pin IDE cable and jumper switches (to include "slave" and "Cable Select"). Note*: the Compaq's Seagate drive is SAT, so no master/slave connecting to the 3 connector ribbon IDE cable to ensure the master/slave "relationship" between the two.

After hooking it up, the WD drive gets warm, but upon reboot--after the Compaq logo screen--the screen goes blank, except for a flashing cursor in the top left of the monitor screen. I did make sure that the boot drive was properly set to the internal factory drive (Seagate Barracuda) as the priority boot drive. Nothing.

So, I purchased a Rocketfish 3.5 external drive enclosure "kit". I hooked it all up according to instruiction (it's basically an internal drive with a box, that allegedly uses the floppy drive connection as a secondary hard drive). The box has power as seen by the back-lit button on the front of the external enclosure; the IDE cable is connected to the IDE port in side, as is the 4 prong power plug. I tried this with no jumper shunt and with the shunt in varies positions (just in case). The "box" connects to the Compaq via a USB cable.

Vista uses drive USBSTOR.SYS for the mass storage device, and it says that the device is working properly. Then Windows Vista says it loads the appropriate driver for the new hardware, but upon running it, has a Windows code 10 error.

Under Device Drivers, Universal Serial Bus Controllers, USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE, there is an exclamation point on the icon. This is the cut and pasted error description from its properties:

Description:
"Windows was able to successfully install device driver software, but the driver software encountered a problem when it tried to run. The problem code is 10."

The disk that came with the Rocketfish external enclosure does not seem to contain any additional or proprietary drivers; neither does the useless website for RocketFish. On the accompanying disk, is the manual file (which is not extensive), and a One-Touch backup program.

If anyone has anything helpful to add so I can access this older Western Digital drive, I'd be most grateful.

Richard

Discussion is locked

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At this point I'd
Jan 14, 2008 10:45AM PST

1. Try the rear USB ports.
2. Boot a Linux CD and see if that sees the drive.
3. Since the machine it came from failed, all bets are off. There is no reason this drive should work.
4. Try the USB housing but with Master, Slave and CS settings. Three tests with Vista and with Linux CD.

Good luck.

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Re: Trouble accessing old drive (XP) on Vista computer
Jan 14, 2008 1:31PM PST

I will try a rear USB port, and let you know what happens. I will also see if I can come up with a Linux boot disk.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Richard

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The end to a lot of frustration.
Feb 17, 2008 6:14PM PST

The end to one small bit of frustration for me (and several others): If the hard drive in your 3.5 inch Rocketfish enclosure has the above issue, check to see if the Master/Slave/CS jumper is in place. If it is, remove it completely and your hard drive will be recognized. I don't recall seeing this little bit of information in the documentation and it's definitely not listed on the Rocketfish website.

I purchased a second Rocketfish enclosure and spent days of troubleshooting this before figuring this out. I wonder if that is why the returns of these enclosures are being sold on the BestBuy outlet of eBay for $10. Pretty bad for a product that had a retail price of $60 a few weeks ago.

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Hmm, gonna try this on another product.
Feb 17, 2008 10:46PM PST

In one machine my IDE to SATA didn't work. Thanks for a fresh idea.