USB to IDE cable issues.

Sillychuckie

Hi there. I recently purchased a USB to IDE cable so I can use a few hard drives I have externally.
I also purchased a new hard drive as I felt I needed a tad more backup storage.
I connected the drive up using the USB port and tried it on both my main PC and my Laptop. Neither worked. I figured because there were no partitions and the space was unallocated (so the machines were not recognising it as an external mass storage device).
I formatted the drive (100% NTFS, primary partition). I know this goes over the 1024 head boundry, but the disk will never need to be bootable so I don't see this as a problem.

I tried again connecting the drive (to my laptop) and it worked like a charm. I now have a 160GB USB hard drive.

HOWEVER:
It does not work on my main PC. It recognises something has been plugged in, begins to install it as a "Mass Storage Device" but then almost immediately changes the driver to "Unknown Device" (and stays like that).
It doesn't give me a drive letter, and I can't access it.
It is however able to access an old drive I have (6 gig or so) with no problems.

Both PC's are running the same version of XP with SP 2 and all the windows updates. I have tried formatting the new drive in different ways but whichever way I do it, the scenario is always the same:

New 160GB Drive (Works with laptop, NOT with main PC)
Old 6 GB Drive (Works with both)

Does anyone have any experience with these things?
Thanks.

Little_John

It doesnt matter on the ubs connector I have but check the drive jumpers are se to CS/cable select as some wont work if the jumpers are set to master or slave some require it to be set. the best way would be to duplicate the 6gb drive.

Sillychuckie

Sorry, i forgot to mention I had also tried that.
It works with EITHER drive on the laptop, but NEITHER drive on the main PC.
6GB on main pc is set to master. With 160GB one, it makes no difference.