What is a decent enclosure for a notebook drive? I upgraded my notebook but still wish to keep the old hard drive for backup. Thanks.

For Windows 2000 & XP, you need to do this

- 1) Connect the cable to the computer
- 2) If USB - Drivers need to be installed (Windows may or may not have them already)
- 3) Go to Administrative Tools > Computer Management
       You will see two window panes - On the left will be management options

       Select "Disk Management" - Two new window panes will appear on the right

       Top Right will be the list of "Actual" Drives
       Bottom Right will be the "Physical" Drives - The new drive should show here.

Physical drives which is the actual hardware will show in the list as "Disk 0" "Disk 1" and son on.
You will recongnize your new drive because it will either have NO drive letter associated with it
or the drive letter will be one that previously was not on your system. Also, the physical size of
drive will show here too.

- 4) Once you find your external drive listed here, select the drive by clicking on the wide bar
       you see there. All operations are performed by right clicking in this area.

Now, keeping this simple, ((MAKE SURE you are not selecting your C:\\ Drive)) you will want to
       delete any partitions that may be present on this drive. After this, you will want to
       create a "Primary Partition." While doing this, there will be an option to Format the
       drive. Make sure this option is NOT checked. The reason for this is it's faster to use
       Windows Explorer to format the drive than it is useing the Disk Management Consol.

- 5) In the same window pane, where it says the disk number, make sure there are "no warning marks."
       I forget whether the mark would be yellow or red. If there is one of these marks in this
       area, then you need to either right click or double click on the warning mark, then in the
       context menu that pops up, select "Initialize Drive" If you don't see a warning mark, then
       you are good to go.

- 6) Close the Computer Management Consol, then open Windows Explorer and click on the Plus sign
       to the left of My Computer. You should see the new drive listed here. Right click on the
       new drive and select "Format Drive" Before you do this, you can always click on the drive
       letter to be sure you're not doing the wrong drive.

I hope this helps.

Has anyone tried the new Intio 2430L chipset?

Excellent thread Answered almost all my questions. Thank you for putting this together kknd1967.

Now I've just got to decide what is the best Firewire solution for my Seagate 160 GB HD on Windows 2003 Server. Any suggestions??

It would be nice if individual installation configurations were posted in the Quick Summary along with a review of the results.

1. Initio is very popular in the U.S., it's just that it's much more popular and known in products intended for the Macintosh market. On the Mac side of computing, Initio rules. The performance and reliability of Initio chipsets is on a par with Oxford, and beats the pants off Prolific and other ghetto chipsets.

2. On a Macintosh, you can boot OS X from an external 1394 port, but you can't from a USB2 port.

3. On a PC, you can boot Windows from an external USB2 port, but not from a 1394 port.

4. A fanless enclosure is OK as long as it is completely made of aluminum with a snug fit for heat dissipation, with no plastic touching the drive. The Macally PHR-100AC combo enclosure would be an example of that.

Since this is the office thread are there specific recommendations?

thanks.

darkprince85 said:tashayar said:Thank you for putting together this resource. I learned a lot and it has been helpful. Would anyone be able to offer any specific recommendations for a brand new 200GB Seagate drive I just purchased? Based upon this thread I should look for something with a fan, aluminum, and compatible with my WIN ME & XP systems.

Thank you.

I bought the same thing and I would also like 2 know this.

Sorry I have been overwhelmed by job relocation. Will gather some time in next a few weekends to update this thread. My apologies

I have about 4 extra hard drives with one external enclosure....i'm tired of swapping all the time but I dont want to spend $75 on 3 more enclosures....is there any kind of enclosure that holds more than one harddrive? or is there a way to fill up a seperate computer case with hard drives and connect it to my pc?

Just bought an IDE to USB from eBay and it works great. Got it for $17. Come with an addon so you can use Labtop Hardrive and Regular Hardrive and also you can use it for DVD Burners.

I used to to put my backup of PS2 games in by PS2 hardrive. Alot faster and easy to use. Well Well worth the $17 dollars. Didnt even have to install drivers.