Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
> "Ken" <noreply@charter.net> wrote in message
> news:VsFXj.16$aq.4@newsfe05.lga...
>> Pegasus (MVP) said the following on 5/17/2008 11:12 AM:
>>> "Ken" <noreply@charter.net> wrote in message
>>> news:w0FXj.13$aq.12@newsfe05.lga...
>>>> I purchased a mobile rack and three interchangeable trays for storing
>>>> data I don't need very often. I installed it first in my Windows 2000
>>>> system and it functions just fine--the disks are recognized when
>>>> inserted and the powered up, and I can interchange them at will without
>>>> problems.
>>>>
>>>> I recently built a new system based on Windows XP SP3. I purchased a
>>>> second mobile rack for that unit with the expectation that I could use
>>>> the mobile hdd's in either workstation.
>>>>
>>>> On the XPstation I have a C: drive active partition, a D: DVD writer, an
>>>> E: partition (on the same drive as the C: drive) and an F: drive on its
>>>> own partition (separate drive). I have 6 SATA connectors on my Intel
>>>> DP35DP mb with the DVD writer on the first, disk 0 on the second, disk 1
>>>> on the third, and the mobile rack on the fourth (as they appear in the
>>>> BIOS)
>>>>
>>>> When I insert the tray/drive into the internal mobile rack into the XP
>>>> unit, one of two things happens:
>>>> 1. the drive is not recognized
>>>> 2. the drive is recognized but my drive letter for my DVD writer is
>>>> reassigned from D: to G: drive.
>>>> 3. the mobile rack is not recognized in the BIOS as existingMobile
>>>>
>>>> I thought it was the cables, but that is not an issue. I thought it was
>>>> the connectors, but those are not the issue. It is not the units, as
>>>> both mobile racks work in the Win2K station without problem. Thinking
>>>> it might be data written to the hdd by Win2K that was causing the
>>>> problem, I reformatted the disks, but that did not help.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there something that needs to be
>>>> changed in the BIOS of the new Intel motherboard? Is this a problem
>>>> with the mobile rack that is installed in my XP machine? (the unit in
>>>> the Win2K machine is IDE and in the XP machine it is a SATA connection)
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>> I have had some mobile racks that were marginal. Sometimes the
>>> disks inside were recognised, sometimes they weren't. These days
>>> I use external USB cases. They always work and I can connect/
>>> disconnect them while Windows is up and running.
>>>
>>> If you intend to stick to mobile racks then you should examine the
>>> boot messages generated by your BIOS. Does it recognise the
>>> disks?
>>>
>>> You can resolve the drive letter issue by running diskmgmt.msc
>>> from the Start/Run box and assigning a letter of your choice to
>>> the mobile rack disks.
>> Were you using external USB racks or separate powered cases for each hdd?
>> I was hoping to just have one device for each computer so that I could
>> exchange info. How does the exchange rate of info compare between a USB
>> connection and USB 2.0? It would mainly be for exchanging large (4.5GB)
>> files between computers for burning DVDs or playing videos over my LAN
>> with VidLAN.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ken K
>
> I usually use 2.5" disks. They are nice and small and they do not
> require an external power supply.
>
> USB1 is painfully slow but USB2 is much faster. It took me 67
> seconds to copy a 1 GByte file from an internal IDE disk to an
> external disk in a USB2 case. Here are the commands I used.
> Note that drive C: should be an NTFS volume.
> fsutil file createnew c:\big.bin 1000000000 (creates a 1 GByte file)
> timethis copy c:\big.bin U:\ (measures the time to copy)
>
>
I can live with that transfer speed. Thanks