USB docking station for internal hard drives? Anyone ever use one?

pikingrin

pikingrin

what is this?
My old XP system crapped out so I recently upgraded my recording PC. The new comp I got had a slim profile case and no spare bays for adding hard drives (it's also running Win 7). I have 80gb worth of project files, of which not even half are completely done, on an internal hard drive. So I bought this USB3.0 docking station and slapped the old hard drive in so I could access all my files. Only problem is that the computer recognizes that there is a device plugged in to the USB port but not the hard drive that is plugged into it. My research has shown that I may need to initialize the old hard drive to make it to where the new comp recognizes it - which would result in a loss of all of my data. I've also seen people making the external drive into a slave drive for it to be recognized but I have no clue on how to do that - there aren't any switches on the docking station other than the power switch. Anyone know an easy way to make this work?

If I have to initialize the drive, is there any way to save the data off of that hard drive to another external drive before I wipe it clean?
 
I have used an external USB drive bay which I use to recover files from old drives that are no longer in the computer (from old no longer in use computers), I have only used it a few times but it has worked every time.

I would not initialise as this is something you do when using a new drive after formatting. There could be a problem with the fact that the old drive maybe Fat-32 and the new computer is looking for an NTFS drive. I believe that you may be able to mount the drive via the Disk Management tool by adding a new volume.

Also did the drive bay come with any software? You may have to look for the drive using some 3rd party software? There will be a way to make this work as long as the old drive is working OK.

The other option is to use an old XP machine to recover the info on the drive then transfer it to a NTFS drive which the windows 7 should see OK.


Cheers
Alan.
 
I can't offer much practical advice other than to back up the above and say don't initialise the drive.
This would certainly result in losing all your data.

Maybe just go around trying the usb dock + drive in other computers to see if it's recognised elsewhere?
 
I've added older drives from PC's to USB cases many times and never needed to do anything but plug them in, drag and drop files where I want them and job done.

Is there a chance your HDD's crapped out along with the PC? I've had a few burn out before and that was the end of them and the data.
 
Mr Clean said:
I've added older drives from PC's to USB cases many times and never needed to do anything but plug them in, drag and drop files where I want them and job done.

Is there a chance your HDD's crapped out along with the PC? I've had a few burn out before and that was the end of them and the data.
Click to expand...

This'd probably be my guess. (skim read it last time) lol.

Any time my computer has offered to initialize a drive it's been a brand new drive or a dead drive.
I actually have a dell lappy on the bench right now with a dead hdd, and my desktop computer wants to initialize that drive.

Does the message come up immediately, or is there a lengthy delay?
Does the drive make any unnerving noises?
 
I don't think his computer is asking to initialise, I think OP found this suggestion on the net somewhere? I just wanted to make sure they did not do it.

Waiting original OP to reply.

Alan.
 
The comp doesn't ask me to do anything; all it does is recognize that there is a new device plugged into a USB port. I was looking around at other sites and there were mentions of initializing as necessary to have a disk recognized. I obviously can't do that but I'm not sure if there are any other options.

My PC for recording is the only windows system in the house, the others are all Macs; would it make a difference if I tried it on one of those and then moved them from there? I think, if my memory serves me correctly, that it might be FAT-32... The drive is surely not dead as I had access to it right before whatever happened happened. It wasn't the boot drive and, after I moved to Indy, I got the BSOD when I turned the machine on - just figured it was something other than the HDD failing.
 
pikingrin said:
The drive is surely not dead as I had access to it right before whatever happened happened.
Click to expand...

This means absolutely nothing, believe me. I had 3 drives all burn out in a computer at the same time. I mean smokin', burn out. If one drive died in the PC, there's a big chance that the second took a fart too.

Fingers crossed for you. I lost over 10 years of work in a couple of seconds once. Gutted doesn't describe it. Now I double back up everything.
 
pikingrin said:
The comp doesn't ask me to do anything; all it does is recognize that there is a new device plugged into a USB port. I was looking around at other sites and there were mentions of initializing as necessary to have a disk recognized. I obviously can't do that but I'm not sure if there are any other options.

My PC for recording is the only windows system in the house, the others are all Macs; would it make a difference if I tried it on one of those and then moved them from there? I think, if my memory serves me correctly, that it might be FAT-32... The drive is surely not dead as I had access to it right before whatever happened happened. It wasn't the boot drive and, after I moved to Indy, I got the BSOD when I turned the machine on - just figured it was something other than the HDD failing.
Click to expand...

Try the suggestions in my first reply and let us know how it went.

Alan.
 
witzendoz said:
I have used an external USB drive bay which I use to recover files from old drives that are no longer in the computer (from old no longer in use computers), I have only used it a few times but it has worked every time.

I would not initialise as this is something you do when using a new drive after formatting. There could be a problem with the fact that the old drive maybe Fat-32 and the new computer is looking for an NTFS drive. I believe that you may be able to mount the drive via the Disk Management tool by adding a new volume.

Also did the drive bay come with any software? You may have to look for the drive using some 3rd party software? There will be a way to make this work as long as the old drive is working OK.

The other option is to use an old XP machine to recover the info on the drive then transfer it to a NTFS drive which the windows 7 should see OK.


Cheers
Alan.
Click to expand...
Alan, looking in disk management it shows 2 removable drives but it shows "No Media" in their reference. I've got 6 USB ports, and it only shows 2 as being occupied - one is probably my iLok device to store licenses on and the other may be the dongle for Cubase. I've got the drive bay plugged in as well but it's not even showing up. I've never messed with partitions and the only other time I did anything HDD related is when I added this 80gb drive to my old comp - it was recognized and integrated itself without me having to do anything. It has me wondering about the bay itself - what kind have you used that has worked? I went with a middle of the road jobby off of amazon; that, in my limited experience with amazon-purchased PC products, might be the issue...
 
Mr Clean said:
This means absolutely nothing, believe me. I had 3 drives all burn out in a computer at the same time. I mean smokin', burn out. If one drive died in the PC, there's a big chance that the second took a fart too.

Fingers crossed for you. I lost over 10 years of work in a couple of seconds once. Gutted doesn't describe it. Now I double back up everything.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I'm afraid of at this point; if it's not the dock then it's the drive itself. With every single track I've recorded since around 2002-2003 until now. I've got 2 external drives, one for backup, and I'm thinking I may be able to sync this machine up to my apple time machine wireless backup drive as well - never again will I be caught with my proverbial pants down. :o
 
pikingrin said:
Alan, looking in disk management it shows 2 removable drives but it shows "No Media" in their reference. I've got 6 USB ports, and it only shows 2 as being occupied - one is probably my iLok device to store licenses on and the other may be the dongle for Cubase. I've got the drive bay plugged in as well but it's not even showing up. I've never messed with partitions and the only other time I did anything HDD related is when I added this 80gb drive to my old comp - it was recognized and integrated itself without me having to do anything. It has me wondering about the bay itself - what kind have you used that has worked? I went with a middle of the road jobby off of amazon; that, in my limited experience with amazon-purchased PC products, might be the issue...
Click to expand...

My bay was only a cheap one, it just worked, I actually cloned my software drive with it. It did come with a acronis disc but I already had it installed.

It is looking like there may be a drive problem. Is the drive spinning up at all?

Alan
 
witzendoz said:
My bay was only a cheap one, it just worked, I actually cloned my software drive with it. It did come with a acronis disc but I already had it installed.

It is looking like there may be a drive problem. Is the drive spinning up at all?

Alan
Click to expand...
The case gets power but the drive doesn't spin at all. :( I'm going to try one more thing, and see if that works…really hoping that this drive isn't dead...
 
I will admit that I'm embarrassed... The bay that I got supports SATA hard drives and my 80gb is an IDE. :facepalm: New bay on order, should be here Tuesday. I will let you know how it goes....
 
pikingrin said:
I will admit that I'm embarrassed... The bay that I got supports SATA hard drives and my 80gb is an IDE. :facepalm: New bay on order, should be here Tuesday. I will let you know how it goes....
Click to expand...

You're kidding, right? Neither data nor power cables are even similar! :eek:

Ah well, at least you know now.
 
Steenamaroo said:
You're kidding, right? Neither data nor power cables are even similar! :eek:

Ah well, at least you know now.
Click to expand...
My first mistake was to not remove the old HDD before I bought the hub; I would have clearly seen "Enhanced IDE" on the drive and been able to order the right bay for it in the first place. My second mistake was not even opening up the old comp to take a look at the drives in it to make sure I was ordering the right bay. :o

Just figured, since the drive slid in and seemed to seat in the bay, that it was the right one. Live and learn, that's what it's all about, right?
 
pikingrin said:
My first mistake was to not remove the old HDD before I bought the hub; I would have clearly seen "Enhanced IDE" on the drive and been able to order the right bay for it in the first place. My second mistake was not even opening up the old comp to take a look at the drives in it to make sure I was ordering the right bay. :o

Just figured, since the drive slid in and seemed to seat in the bay, that it was the right one. Live and learn, that's what it's all about, right?
Click to expand...

Ah it was a slidey-inney job..That makes more sense.
Ah well, easy mistake. :)
 
pikingrin said:
I will admit that I'm embarrassed... The bay that I got supports SATA hard drives and my 80gb is an IDE. :facepalm: New bay on order, should be here Tuesday. I will let you know how it goes....
Click to expand...

I did not think to ask if you had the right bay, mine fits both sata and ide. Oh well you will get use out of the sata one I am sure.

Alan
 
Just FYI,
I bought an external HDD plug in unit some years ago, XP days and it worked ok. You had to set the jumpers on the drives correctly.
A few weeks ago I turned an old P4 3G PC from XP to Win7/32 and dug out the docking unit. I could get none of the 1/2 dozen or so drive I had about the place to work. I put it down to Win 7?

Note. a year ago I bought an XP tower PC from a charity shop for £10.00. Cheaper than a docking station and should work with all those old drives?

Dave.
 
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