Hard Drive removable tray and XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rock
  • Start date Start date
R

Rock

HI,

I have XP pro and on two occasions I have had the HD tray drive letter lose
contact with XP and then after a while, lose all the data on the HD.

I am not sure why this has happened as I do not change them very often at all.

Is there anything I should know about using XP Pro with HD trays? For example
are there special XP trays?

Thanks
 
Rock said:
HI,

I have XP pro and on two occasions I have had the HD tray drive letter
lose contact with XP and then after a while, lose all the data on the HD.

I am not sure why this has happened as I do not change them very often at
all.

Is there anything I should know about using XP Pro with HD trays? For
example are there special XP trays?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Are u referring to slide-out trays, also called "caddies" iirc, that you
can slide out of one computer & into another basically identical computer?
Or are u referring to an external hd tray that is customarily used on just
one computer? s
 
sdlomi2 said:
Are u referring to slide-out trays, also called "caddies" iirc, that you
can slide out of one computer & into another basically identical computer?
Or are u referring to an external hd tray that is customarily used on just
one computer? s
Click to expand...
The first. The holder is put in a box bay and the tray can be remove not an
external casing.
 
Rock said:
The first. The holder is put in a box bay and the tray can be remove not
an external casing.
Click to expand...
I have some of those I used w/Win 98 AND between virtually identical
computers. Are your comps. identical? and are your trays compatible
w/WinXP? s
 
I have some of those I used w/Win 98 AND between virtually identical
computers. Are your comps. identical? and are your trays compatible
w/WinXP? s
Click to expand...


Rock:
As you've clarified, you're using removable HDDs contained in removable
caddies or trays so that even though the HDDs are can be easily removed from
the system, they serve as *internal* HDDs while they're in use. It's a most
desirable hardware arrangement that we strongly recommend for desktop PC
users.

Anyway, as to your problem...

It's nearly impossible to diagnose the cause of your problem from your
cursory description of the problem, let alone its solution. You have simply
got to provide more detailed information as to *precisely* what the problem
is, under what circumstances it occurs, and as much background info as you
can provide, including any software/hardware changes you may have made
preceding this problem. And is there any possibility that you may be simply
dealing with a defective mobile rack or removable tray, or the device has
been misconnected? Do you have any clue or suspicion whatsoever as to what
may be causing this problem?

You say this problem has arisen "on two occasions ". Is that it? Only "two
occasions"? The rest of the time no problem? You *must* describe your
problem more precisely. Stating "I have had the HD tray drive letter lose
contact with XP and then after a while, lose all the data on the HD." is
close to meaningless in terms of truly understanding your problem, and more
importantly for you, trying to come up with a solution to your problem.

Is there more than one removable HDD involved here? If so, do the problems
pertain to both? Have you tried to *directly* connect the HDD to the
motherboard's IDE channel (I'm assuming these are PATA/IDE HDDs, not SATA
HDDs), not using the mobile rack/removable tray? If so, same problem?
Anna
 
There is no such thing as XP compatible hard drive trays (excluding maybe
some USB or similar types I've seen), the most common (IDE and SATA) are an
entirely hardware interface and Windows (or any other OS for that matter)
are not even aware they are in use. They work for any OS including DOS and
Linux and require no drivers or special setup.
 
Rock said:
HI,

I have XP pro and on two occasions I have had the HD tray drive letter
lose contact with XP and then after a while, lose all the data on the HD.

I am not sure why this has happened as I do not change them very often at
all.

Is there anything I should know about using XP Pro with HD trays? For
example are there special XP trays?

Thanks
Click to expand...

There is nothing unique about XP Pros or any OS for that matter when it
comes to using removable drive trays, the OS is totally unaware of their
existence. I have 2 trays installed in my 3 computers, 2 XP computers and 1
Win98 and all 3 computers have no problems at all recognizing the drives in
these trays.
 
Jerry said:
There is nothing unique about XP Pros or any OS for that matter when it
comes to using removable drive trays, the OS is totally unaware of their
existence. I have 2 trays installed in my 3 computers, 2 XP computers and
1 Win98 and all 3 computers have no problems at all recognizing the drives
in these trays.
Click to expand...
Jerry, that is good info. Tho' I used them a lot in Win '98 days, I've
never tried them in an XP environment, as by this time I had moved up to
bigger h/d's w/no need for them. I may just dig them out and use them
intermittently for backing-up. IIRC, in addition to a couple still encasing
like 2.5-gig hd's, I even have 2-3 never opened: found what I tho't was a
deal on ebay, I guess. And I feel sure they'd run cooler than in lots of
enclosures--think I recall them having 2/3 small fans in them--plus they
should be noticeably faster than USB enclosures. Thanks for the heads up.
s
 
Anna said:
Rock:
As you've clarified, you're using removable HDDs contained in removable
caddies or trays so that even though the HDDs are can be easily removed from
the system, they serve as *internal* HDDs while they're in use. It's a most
desirable hardware arrangement that we strongly recommend for desktop PC
users.

Anyway, as to your problem...

It's nearly impossible to diagnose the cause of your problem from your
cursory description of the problem, let alone its solution. You have simply
got to provide more detailed information as to *precisely* what the problem
is, under what circumstances it occurs, and as much background info as you
can provide, including any software/hardware changes you may have made
preceding this problem. And is there any possibility that you may be simply
dealing with a defective mobile rack or removable tray, or the device has
been misconnected? Do you have any clue or suspicion whatsoever as to what
may be causing this problem?

You say this problem has arisen "on two occasions ". Is that it? Only "two
occasions"? The rest of the time no problem? You *must* describe your
problem more precisely. Stating "I have had the HD tray drive letter lose
contact with XP and then after a while, lose all the data on the HD." is
close to meaningless in terms of truly understanding your problem, and more
importantly for you, trying to come up with a solution to your problem.

Is there more than one removable HDD involved here? If so, do the problems
pertain to both? Have you tried to *directly* connect the HDD to the
motherboard's IDE channel (I'm assuming these are PATA/IDE HDDs, not SATA
HDDs), not using the mobile rack/removable tray? If so, same problem?
Anna
Click to expand...
Yes Anna you are correct, my question was certainly very open to
misinterpretation.

Part of the reason it was, is because the first time it did the drive in, I was
not aware of anything that was done differently to when it had been working for
a couple of years. Just one morning I saw it was not in the explorer list and
after looking at it in another box, saw the partition itself had disappeared
with the 28GB of data it had on it. I used some rescue tools and got a little
back, but not much.

I then left it without a tray for a couple of months trying to get time to look
at it, then recently put another drive in it and at first it showed up okay,
but after a day or so it disappeared again from explorer. Fortunately it had
not done the partition or data in.
I tried the drive in another similar tray in the same box and it is fine as the
drive that lived in that tray had also been okay.

It sounds like it is the tray mobo itself or even the mobo/drive flat cable, so
I will change that first and see what happens.

I was interested to see whether or not they needed an XP driver as I do recall
years ago that I used some trays which I used on 95 and 98s boxes and they
definitely did not work on the first XP.

Anyway I thank you all for the discussion and help and will report as I work
things out. If you have more to comment on please do as I would like to know.

Happy Christmas.
 
Rock said:
Yes Anna you are correct, my question was certainly very open to
misinterpretation.

Part of the reason it was, is because the first time it did the drive in,
I was not aware of anything that was done differently to when it had been
working for a couple of years. Just one morning I saw it was not in the
explorer list and after looking at it in another box, saw the partition
itself had disappeared with the 28GB of data it had on it. I used some
rescue tools and got a little back, but not much.

I then left it without a tray for a couple of months trying to get time to
look at it, then recently put another drive in it and at first it showed
up okay, but after a day or so it disappeared again from explorer.
Fortunately it had not done the partition or data in.
I tried the drive in another similar tray in the same box and it is fine
as the drive that lived in that tray had also been okay.

It sounds like it is the tray mobo itself or even the mobo/drive flat
cable, so I will change that first and see what happens.

I was interested to see whether or not they needed an XP driver as I do
recall years ago that I used some trays which I used on 95 and 98s boxes
and they definitely did not work on the first XP.

Anyway I thank you all for the discussion and help and will report as I
work things out. If you have more to comment on please do as I would like
to know.

Happy Christmas.
Click to expand...


Rock:
No, you do *not* need any special XP driver for your HDD mobile
rack/removable HDD. All you *do* need are non-defective hardware components
that are properly installed in your desktop PC. So it may be very well that
you're dealing with defective equipment. Mobile racks and their removable
trays, like any other piece of computer hardware, can become defective.
Similarly the IDE ribbon (data) cable connecting the device to your
motherboard's IDE channel can become defective as well as a defective power
connection. While not the usual scenario, these things do happen.

Anyway, good luck in working through your problem.

As I pointed out in my previous response to your query, it would most
certainly be a good idea to remove the HDD from its removable tray and
connect it *directly* to your motherboard's IDE channel (using the same IDE
data cable). Should all go well that would seem to pinpoint the problem is
indeed with the mobile rack and/or its removable tray.
Anna
 
sdlomi2 said:
Jerry, that is good info. Tho' I used them a lot in Win '98 days, I've
never tried them in an XP environment, as by this time I had moved up to
bigger h/d's w/no need for them. I may just dig them out and use them
intermittently for backing-up. IIRC, in addition to a couple still
encasing like 2.5-gig hd's, I even have 2-3 never opened: found what I
tho't was a deal on ebay, I guess. And I feel sure they'd run cooler
than in lots of enclosures--think I recall them having 2/3 small fans in
them--plus they should be noticeably faster than USB enclosures. Thanks
for the heads up. s
Click to expand...

All my cases have 4 - 5 1/4" bays, 2 for optical and 2 for removable trays.
I weekly pop a spare in the 2nd drive tray and do a full clone with ghost
2003, then run off the clone I can clone a disk with 25 gb of data in under
15 minutes. It also gives me the ability to just stick in a spare drive if
I want to play with Linux or Vista. I buy the cheap ones at geeks.com and
other than an occasional noisy fan I not had any problems with them. In
fact, they have a new style in stock now for $4.99.
 
Anna said:
Rock:
No, you do *not* need any special XP driver for your HDD mobile
rack/removable HDD. All you *do* need are non-defective hardware
components that are properly installed in your desktop PC. So it may be
very well that you're dealing with defective equipment. Mobile racks and
their removable trays, like any other piece of computer hardware, can
become defective. Similarly the IDE ribbon (data) cable connecting the
device to your motherboard's IDE channel can become defective as well as a
defective power connection. While not the usual scenario, these things do
happen.

Anyway, good luck in working through your problem.

As I pointed out in my previous response to your query, it would most
certainly be a good idea to remove the HDD from its removable tray and
connect it *directly* to your motherboard's IDE channel (using the same
IDE data cable). Should all go well that would seem to pinpoint the
problem is indeed with the mobile rack and/or its removable tray.
Anna
Click to expand...

Would seem to me by the entire thread information derived from the OP, the
tray itself of the hard drive with the problem is the problem. He said he
tried another tray, and worked fine. Which, it seems to me, eliminates
everything else. I would start with the internal connections inside the
tray to the hard drive by disconnecting and reconnecting. Its alot easier
to do this first if the source of the problem. If no change, then pull the
problematic hard drive out and directly connect to the ide ribbon cable that
currently feeds the enclosure for the tray as you indicated.

One other notation. The ribbon cable could be problematic if the
successfully tested tray had a pio mode only capable hard drive in it, and
the other a later model that requires an 80 wire version ide ribbon cable.

Dave
 
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