Maxtor Ext Drive & USB Upgrade issue

[Diane M.]

I hope this is the correct group..

I recently bought a Maxtor external hard drive to use as a backup/storage
drive. My PC which is 3 1/2 years old has 1.1 ports. We installed the Dantz
software and the drive and backed up my PC, but I must admit the backup
process was painfully slow to the point where I almost stopped it. The
problem is, my "C" drive which is an IBM is about to $hit the bed...I have
the infamous clicking sounds and got a master boot failure message a couple
of times. A couple of whacks and we moved the arm and got the pc backed up.

I did a bit of poking around and read about USB 2.0 PCI cards so I bought an
Adaptec two port USB upgrade kit, put it in the PC, but Windows "add new
hardware wizard" does not find the card. We double checked the card in the
slot to make sure it was seated properly, but it's okay.

Can someone give me a shove in the right direction to resolve the issue? I
plugged the Maxtor into the installed upgrade card and the drive functions,
but 2.0 drivers weren't installed. Should we moved the card to a different
PCI slot or is there something else I should try. And, I thought USB was
supposed to be simple. ;-)

I have WinXP Prof SP2, Asus P4-TE mobo....thanks.

D.

 

[Jim]

I hope this is the correct group..

I recently bought a Maxtor external hard drive to use as a backup/storage
drive. My PC which is 3 1/2 years old has 1.1 ports. We installed the Dantz
software and the drive and backed up my PC, but I must admit the backup
process was painfully slow to the point where I almost stopped it. The
problem is, my "C" drive which is an IBM is about to $hit the bed...I have
the infamous clicking sounds and got a master boot failure message a couple
of times. A couple of whacks and we moved the arm and got the pc backed up.

I did a bit of poking around and read about USB 2.0 PCI cards so I bought an
Adaptec two port USB upgrade kit, put it in the PC, but Windows "add new
hardware wizard" does not find the card. We double checked the card in the
slot to make sure it was seated properly, but it's okay.

Can someone give me a shove in the right direction to resolve the issue? I
plugged the Maxtor into the installed upgrade card and the drive functions,
but 2.0 drivers weren't installed. Should we moved the card to a different
PCI slot or is there something else I should try. And, I thought USB was
supposed to be simple. ;-)

I have WinXP Prof SP2, Asus P4-TE mobo....thanks.

D.

Rather surprised you asked about swapping to another PCI slot, instead of
just doing it.
Does that USB 2.0 card have a PCI spec requirement, for instance 2.2, and
does your motherboard meet that?
Disabling, via the bios setup, onboard USB, or perhaps some onboard hardware
you're not using may help.
Implementing USB devices in an XP environment is usually very simple.
Getting the USB interface to work with your or any other particular PC is a
different matter.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I hope this is the correct group..

I recently bought a Maxtor external hard drive to use as a backup/storage
drive. My PC which is 3 1/2 years old has 1.1 ports. We installed the Dantz
software and the drive and backed up my PC, but I must admit the backup
process was painfully slow to the point where I almost stopped it. The
problem is, my "C" drive which is an IBM is about to $hit the bed...I have
the infamous clicking sounds and got a master boot failure message a couple
of times. A couple of whacks and we moved the arm and got the pc backed up.

I did a bit of poking around and read about USB 2.0 PCI cards so I bought an
Adaptec two port USB upgrade kit, put it in the PC, but Windows "add new
hardware wizard" does not find the card. We double checked the card in the
slot to make sure it was seated properly, but it's okay.

Can someone give me a shove in the right direction to resolve the issue? I
plugged the Maxtor into the installed upgrade card and the drive functions,
but 2.0 drivers weren't installed. Should we moved the card to a different
PCI slot or is there something else I should try. And, I thought USB was
supposed to be simple. ;-)

I have WinXP Prof SP2, Asus P4-TE mobo....thanks.

Did any drivers come with the Adaptec card and did you install
them?

Arno

 

[Diane M.]

Did any drivers come with the Adaptec card and did you install

them?

Arno

Interesting you should ask...

I switched PCI slots with a network card. I got a found new hardware
message that appeared for two seconds and then went away. I got a disc with
the USB card but the PC would not allow me to load the Adaptec drivers.

I contacted Adaptec via their website. They were very helpful and as it
turned out WinXP used its own drivers without any input from me. The tech
support person told me what USB 2.0 entries to look for in Device Manager
and they were there. I didn't need the Adaptec disc at all. Tech support
said that for this card both the Adaptec and Windows drivers work equally
well.

Tech support also suggested I try the Maxtor in both sets of ports and told
me to look for the "there is a faster port" message. I put the Maxtor into
the 1.1 port and Windows told me there were faster ports. I put the drive
into the USB 2.0 and got no such objection.

So, it seems I became unduly alarmed for no reason. I just wish the docs had
talked about Windows doing all this stuff with so little input from the
user. It would also have helped if I has some experience with USB before
now. Thanks for taking the time to read my posting.

D.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Interesting you should ask...

I switched PCI slots with a network card. I got a found new hardware
message that appeared for two seconds and then went away. I got a disc with
the USB card but the PC would not allow me to load the Adaptec drivers.

I contacted Adaptec via their website. They were very helpful and as it
turned out WinXP used its own drivers without any input from me. The tech
support person told me what USB 2.0 entries to look for in Device Manager
and they were there. I didn't need the Adaptec disc at all. Tech support
said that for this card both the Adaptec and Windows drivers work equally
well.

Tech support also suggested I try the Maxtor in both sets of ports and told
me to look for the "there is a faster port" message. I put the Maxtor into
the 1.1 port and Windows told me there were faster ports. I put the drive
into the USB 2.0 and got no such objection.

So, it seems I became unduly alarmed for no reason. I just wish the docs had
talked about Windows doing all this stuff with so little input from the
user. It would also have helped if I has some experience with USB before
now. Thanks for taking the time to read my posting.

No problem. At least Adaptec seems to have good tech support.
Good to know this is solved for you.

Documentation still often sucks today and on first conact with
something new, you often have to guess.

Arno