External drives

[Dennis]

I have a 2 1/2" in an enclosure and when it is plugged in it shows the
name and model of the drive. I just bought a WD 1.0 T internal drive and
hooked it up with a Thermaltake dock. No Western Digital software will
find a WD drive and Windows XP Pro calls it a generic external drive.
Western Digital basically told me sorry 'bout your luck, you should have
bought a western Digital External Drive.
The drive is functional and the four partitions are accessible and it
works fine. Western Digital has a free version of Acronis that would
be nice if it would recognize my drive. The WD diagnostic programs do
not find it, either.

 

[Patok]

Dennis wrote:
> I have a 2 1/2" in an enclosure and when it is plugged in it shows the
> name and model of the drive. I just bought a WD 1.0 T internal drive and
> hooked it up with a Thermaltake dock. No Western Digital software will
> find a WD drive and Windows XP Pro calls it a generic external drive.
> Western Digital basically told me sorry 'bout your luck, you should have
> bought a western Digital External Drive.
> The drive is functional and the four partitions are accessible and it
> works fine. Western Digital has a free version of Acronis that would
> be nice if it would recognize my drive. The WD diagnostic programs do
> not find it, either.

Interesting. I'm glad that I didn't buy a Thermaltake, then. I got
a StarTech from Radio Shack. It is cheaper, and is totally transparent
to the WD WinDLG software - it identifies all parameters of the drive,
and reads its status. I'm sure the WD Acronis would have worked with it
no problem. The only quirk is, that I can't get any other software to
read the SMART status - everybody says it is disabled at the BIOS level.
Only the WinDLG can read it. Oh, well. Can't ask for more for $30.

--
You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone.
--
Whoever bans a book, shall be banished. Whoever burns a book, shall burn.

 

[Paul]

Dennis wrote:
> I have a 2 1/2" in an enclosure and when it is plugged in it shows the
> name and model of the drive. I just bought a WD 1.0 T internal drive and
> hooked it up with a Thermaltake dock. No Western Digital software will
> find a WD drive and Windows XP Pro calls it a generic external drive.
> Western Digital basically told me sorry 'bout your luck, you should have
> bought a western Digital External Drive.
> The drive is functional and the four partitions are accessible and it
> works fine. Western Digital has a free version of Acronis that would
> be nice if it would recognize my drive. The WD diagnostic programs do
> not find it, either.

Normally, a USB to single drive conversion device, should make
the drive details visible.

But it is possible for some other chips to be added, which
hide the drive details. Things such as SATA "storage processors"
are capable of hiding a drive, and presenting a generic drive to
the computer. Silicon Image makes some chips like that. They
support connecting two drives in a RAID array, and making the
results look like a "generic single drive".

The details would be on the circuit board, inside whatever
Thermaltake BlacX product you've got. There is more than
one BlacX product, and the designs inside could be different.

http://aphnetworks.com/review/thermaltake_blacx/006.JPG

http://aphnetworks.com/review/thermaltake_blacx/007.JPG

Perhaps if you opted for a different enclosure or conversion
solution, it might work better ? My guess is, you'd find a
lot of enclosures or adapters would do the right thing.
It could be, the one you bought was a little too
"feature rich". And it all depends on the details
inside the BlacX box. Not all of them may have been
taken apart, as part of a product review.

Paul

 

[Dennis]

I got my reply from Thermaltake and they said:
> As long as the HDD is working and being shown in the windows explorer
> and can be read and written to then the device is working properly.
> We have no control over whether WD software supports our unit.
>
>


Paul wrote:
> Dennis wrote:
>> I have a 2 1/2" in an enclosure and when it is plugged in it shows
>> the name and model of the drive. I just bought a WD 1.0 T internal
>> drive and hooked it up with a Thermaltake dock. No Western Digital
>> software will find a WD drive and Windows XP Pro calls it a generic
>> external drive. Western Digital basically told me sorry 'bout your
>> luck, you should have bought a western Digital External Drive. The
>> drive is functional and the four partitions are accessible and it
>> works fine. Western Digital has a free version of Acronis that
>> would be nice if it would recognize my drive. The WD diagnostic
>> programs do not find it, either.
>
> Normally, a USB to single drive conversion device, should make the
> drive details visible.
>
> But it is possible for some other chips to be added, which hide the
> drive details. Things such as SATA "storage processors" are capable
> of hiding a drive, and presenting a generic drive to the computer.
> Silicon Image makes some chips like that. They support connecting two
> drives in a RAID array, and making the results look like a "generic
> single drive".
>
> The details would be on the circuit board, inside whatever
> Thermaltake BlacX product you've got. There is more than one BlacX
> product, and the designs inside could be different.
>
> http://aphnetworks.com/review/thermaltake_blacx/006.JPG
>
> http://aphnetworks.com/review/thermaltake_blacx/007.JPG
>
> Perhaps if you opted for a different enclosure or conversion
> solution, it might work better ? My guess is, you'd find a lot of
> enclosures or adapters would do the right thing. It could be, the one
> you bought was a little too "feature rich". And it all depends on the
> details inside the BlacX box. Not all of them may have been taken
> apart, as part of a product review.
>
> Paul