Seagate IDE to USB drive in Windows Vista

i am trying to connect two old seagate ide 80 gb hard drives ( barracuda
7200.7 and ST380020A ) to my dell inspiron 1300 laptop with windows vista
home premium. i am using an ide to usb cable. first thing that happens when i
connect either is that 'safely remove hardware' icon pops up in the system
tray and then disappears after a few seconds. i managed to double-click it a
few times before it disappears and go into the properties of the 'USB Mass
Storage device' and at first it says this device is working properly, then
the mouse pointer turns into an hour sign and the following msg replaces that
: Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45)

To fix this problem, reconnect this hardware device to the computer.

Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and
to see if there is a solution available.

it then disappears also from the Safely Remove Hardware popup box all
together. the drives do not appear in my computer, device manager or computer
management. i have rebooted many times, tried all the different jumper
settings, and even deleted the INFCACHE1.inf file as mentioned in one of the
newsgroups fixes i found after hours of googling. still i cannot seem to
access the drives at all. any pointers to what im doing wrong ?? thanks in
advance..

Why don't you use usb external drive enclosures? Those are designed for
what you want to do.

"Ehab" <Ehab@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EA13711D-4323-4851-92BC-C38E0873ADA7@xxxxxx

will that fix the problem ? I want to make sure before i go and purchase one
of those..

"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:

would that fix the problem ? I would like to know before i go and purchase on
of those

"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:

They are very inexpensive and are much better than the ribbon cable
arrangement you are trying now. There can still be an issue but that can be
fixed. USB issues arise a lot with Vista (and even with XP) but at least
you can rule out the connection part.

One thing to do when troubleshooting usb issues is to remove all but the
keyboard and mouse and especially any hubs or docking stations and then try
a port which has been working successfully with other devices. With laptops
there can be too heavy a load on the usb bus otherwise.

Please tell us the details of the computer. That is always useful.

"Ehab" <Ehab@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FF185429-FC02-470C-80F2-1F1A7F69C03E@xxxxxx

In message <C2F8EF3A-413F-4243-8000-CAA13982CC7D@xxxxxx> "Colin
Barnhorst" <c.barnhorst@xxxxxx> wrote:
What exactly do you think "an ide to usb cable" refers to? It's a
implementation an USB enclosure with an IDE port, without the bulky box.

It's a brilliant idea for anyone that wants to quickly mount and unmount
IDE drives without a reboot, and without worrying about attaching a
drive into an enclosure.

(Oh, and they tend to be cheaper due to the lack of the unneeded
"enclosure" component)

the computer is a dell inspiron 1300 notebook with windows vista home
premium, 1.70 GHz Pentium M processor and 1 Gig of Ram

How are you powering the hard drive?

"Ehab" <Ehab@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6DBEA692-0B25-4735-B3C4-629C3C0E5D96@xxxxxx

through the USB cable ? do i need a seperate power supply ?

"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:

If you are using a usb/ide adapter they are apparently prone to problems, as
are ide/sata adapters
Buy an enclosure

"Ehab" <Ehab@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B81A0B0F-520E-4EA1-AF31-0BA6FE7387D9@xxxxxx