I'm trying to hook up an internal SATA 3.5" drive externally using a USB to SATA/IDE adapter kit.

It's going on an old laptop running XPpro. The laptop is recognising that the disk is attached and recognises it as a USB mass storage device in the system tray.

The drive isn't being allocated a drive letter and doesn't appear in the Disk Management console for me to allocate it manually.

Any ideas?

It has worked previously about 6 weeks ago but not without problems.

Any suggestions?

TIA

Not much help too you but I have the same problem. Mine uses an Esata connection, which ramdomly works sometimes and other times it jsut sits being useless. Mines uses usb for IDE which works everytime.

As said not much use too you, but you are not alone.

Got it. The USB kit has a fault in the power delivery.

I've jerry rigged the power supply from another box and it's working now.

Would have been easier if frickin Dell put a couple of spare molex or sata power connectors in their boxes. My desk looks like the aftermath of an explosion in PC World.

Got exactly the same problem with USB splitter ( 1 -4 outputs ) .Anything powered externally (like old canon printer ) works great .Anything relying on power via USB is crap(except flash drives ) - scanner scans as if its on wacky baccy .Thought at first I;d got a dodgy USB port on MB .

I recently bought an Akasa 2.5" ide external enclosure for a spare hard drive i had. Using only the usb data cable was enough to power the drive but to get it to be allocated a drive letter the ( optional ) usb power cable had to be used. So when i use it it takes up two USB ports.

LG- how about self powered USB hub -gets it's power from own unit ,and get's you a few extra ports .Benefit is it also reduces load on PC PSU .I didn't go that way as initially all I wanted was to be able to plug USB sticks in without reaching down rear of PC (no front ports ).Solved the scanner problem with an extension .

If you get the problem in future, right-click My Computer and click Manage.

Go down to Disk Management and all the drives should be on the right, it'll show ones without a drive letter. Right click and click Change Drive Letter And Paths.

Give it a letter, job done

LG- how about self powered USB hub -gets it's power from own unit ,and get's you a few extra ports .Benefit is it also reduces load on PC PSU .I didn't go that way as initially all I wanted was to be able to plug USB sticks in without reaching down rear of PC (no front ports ).Solved the scanner problem with an extension .

Yeah was looking at getting one of those Port Notebook cooler stands with 4 port powered USB ports. My notebook gets really hot so hopefully will kill two birds with the one stone.