XPost: alt.windows-xp   
   From: ianREMOVETHISjackson@g3ohx.demon.co.uk   
      
   In message , Bob L   
    writes   
   >On Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:28:03 +0000, Ian Jackson   
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >>In message , David Kaye   
   >> writes   
   >>>"Ian Jackson"  wrote   
   >>>   
   >>>> At a car boot sale, I bought a couple of old hard drives. When I connected   
   >>>> them with a USB adaptor, IIRC that the USB connection showed up, but the   
   >>>> disk didn't appear as a drive in My Computer.   
   >>>   
   >>>Sounds like bad hard drives.  This can happen if they haven't been used in   
   >>>awhile.  The older ones can freeze and simply not spin, even if the   
   >>>electronics begins to recognize the drives.   
   >>>   
   >>I very much doubt that the drives were 'bad'. They certainly spun OK,   
   >>and they worked fine after I initialized them (as I described, but   
   >>you've snipped that bit). I presume they had been absolutely, totally   
   >>wiped (a wise precaution if you are selling your old hard drives) - and   
   >>it's also possible that they had previously been used on a non-Windows   
   >>operating system.   
   >>   
   >>When a brand new disk is straight off the production line, and is   
   >>totally blank, will an operating system know it is there until it has   
   >>been mounted/initialized or whatever?   
   >   
   >Most USB cases need the hard drive to be set as a MASTER if they are   
   >IDE drives,   
      
   Both of the HDs are IDE, and were set to master. One is a 30GB Maxtor   
   DiamondMax Plus 8 and the other a 40GB Western Digital WD400. Both are   
   dated early 2000s, and as they were rather dusty, presumably had been   
   used. I guess the previous owner had wiped them so well that they were   
   no longer automatically recognised by Windows - at least when connected   
   via the USB adaptor. I didn't try them plugged directly into the PC, so   
   I don't know whether they would have been recognised or not. [I'd be   
   interested to know whether this is unusual behaviour.] As usual, Google   
   was my friend, and I soon found instructions on how to deal with the   
   problem - which is what I described in my rather detailed original post.   
   --   
   Ian   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)