another: external CD-RW drive connected with an IDE to USB cable set

[jonah hex]

have a Sony external CD-RW drive, and bought a IDE-USB cable rig to connect the
drive to USB sans the enclosure. so far, have gotten PC to recognize drive, but nothing will play. drive still asks to put a disc in the drive.

-help-

much...

brian

[Paul Komski]

I havent come across a usb/ide adapter that allows you to connect a usb device to an ide slot (which doesnt mean they dont exist) but do wonder how you would "jumper" the drive to begin with. Could you post the make/model of the adapter? In the absence of an available usb2 port on the PC I would recommend a PCI or PCMCIA USB2 card for attaching external USB2 devices to.

[jonah hex]

hey Paul

other way around. the cable allows an external drive to be connnected to an USB port. the IDE plug goes to the drive and the USB to PC. also comes with a power cord for the external drive.

brian

[Paul Komski]

I thought you had found a way to attach a USB device to IDE and that was flummoxing me. Why do you need the adapter kit for the external CD burner - does it not have a USB or firewire cable that you simply attach to the PC without using any kit.

[jonah hex]

:)

other way around again, sort of...

it's an internal drive, and the cable set was to be able to connect an internal drive without an enclosure. i'm not really upset about the cable not working, as i bought it as a just see kind of thing. i am going to try it on another drive today.

b

[Paul Komski]

So its an internal drive and not "have a Sony external CD-RW drive". What model of a Sony drive is it or have you somehow disassembled that drive and are now trying to just use its IDE/ATAPI component taken out of the external enclosure?

[jonah hex]

this is fun...

it is a Sony CRX230EE-BS internal drive. the sable set is an IDE to USB adapter. a power cord/supply is also included. the cable plugs into the IDE port on the back of the drive and into an USB port on the PC. the cable is supposed to eliminate the need for an enclosure. i wasn't able to test another drive, so i am back to the Sony. A said, i can get the drive to be recognized on My Computer/Disk Management/Hardware Manager, but when i place a disk in the drive, i always get "Please insert a disc into drive x:".

the drive is set to Master as per instructions, but still nothing.


brian

[mjc]

I'm wondering if this is a 'works with most' drives type thing or 'may work with any type IDE drive'...

There is one thing that an optical drive does that a hard drive doesn't...it has to provide notification that the disk has been inserted. It may be that that notification is not being passed along through this particular setup. A USB drive enclosure provides an interface/controller that provides full translation of all the functions...I'm not sure that this cable only set up does all of that.

[Sylvander]

What MJC is saying sounds right to me.
I have an IDE HDD inside an external enclosure.
The USB to ATA "Smart Cable" has the USB circuitry included inside the plug, but a driver is needed for that. A Win98SE driver was supplied on a mini-disk, and the drivers for other OS's are included with the OS installation inside a CAB file.

But the external enclosure includes a circuit board inside with an IDE cable connected from that to the drive.
And also a power connection supplied by power from its own included power unit that connects to a socket on the outside, and there's a power switch on the back of the enclosure.

See it HERE (http://www.vipower.com.tw/P_ExternalEnclosure.php?model_no=VP-9258V).

[jonah hex]

this cable was another let me see if this works things...i have an enclosure, but it doesn't even give me the drive recognition. it's not exactly the cream of the enclosuress either. i think i'll buy a Vantec enclosure and go from there...thanks all for the information...be talking to you soon :)

[Paul Komski]

All the electronic circuitry (the equivalent of the PCB and its connections in an enclosure) is included in the gizmo that attaches to the IDE device. In other words there's no fundamental difference between the electronics for a "converter cable" and an "external enclosure" and such cables usually even have an LED in the "connector plug".

The devices seem to work properly since the drive is recognised in My Computer. I would doubt if USB 1.1 versus USB 2 could even be part of the problem.

The problem is that inserted disks are not recognised. This problem can happen even with internal optical devices and is most commonly due to inappropriate media for the drive in question being inserted or of a faulty drive. Pressed CDROMs (such as original Windows installation CDs) are always the easiest at being recognised. Sometimes this can happen with just one of two internal drives and can point to some sort of conflict between two opticals by windows.

You could try accessing the drive by booting to a Knoppix Live CD in an internal drive to help discriminate between a fundamental Windows and a hardware problem.

... And/Or test the drive as a lone master on an internal connection using 40wire ribbon cables - particularly if the problem is occuring with both the enclosure and the ide/usb converter.