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I have expressed a problem heretofore about a Win 7 problem. After lots of sweat and tears and internet research I have come to the conclusion that Win 7 does not recognize PATA hard drives.
Can anyone tell me if they have had positive experiences. Does you Win 7 machine recognize PATA drives?
Yes, Windows 7 recognizes PATA drives. I have a 200GB drive in my Windows 7 computer and it is fine.
Why do you think it doesn't?
Hi, thanks for the reply.
My reason for thinking there may be a Win 7 problem is as follows. I had an old beat up xp machine which I junked out and bought and nice new Dell with Win 7. I really like the new OS, except for a couple of probllems. I have four hard drives, all of which were operating well on the XP machine - two internal and two external. When I hooked them up to my new Dell as externals, only one of them showed up on my computer and was assigned as a letter drive. The other three do not show up. However they do show up in Device Manager and Disc Manager as non-initiallized drives. Device manager says they are functioning properly and have current drivers. But when I try to initialize them, Dell says, "Drive is not ready." Weird.
I have been scanning the internet looking for solutions and the only thing I have found is suggestions that there is something wrong with the hard drive. I have a problem with that because 1) One of the drives is virtually brand new Western Digital which I only used for a few hours on the XP; 2) it seems highly unlikely that all three hdds would go bad simultaneously at just the time when I change OS. That is just to much of a coincidence.
Then I came across my second Win 7 problem. I tried to boot up to some diagnostic discs I have but was unable to do it because the boot sequence is set to boot to the internal hard drive. I went into the BIOS to change it and found that you cannot change the boot order in Win 7; or at least I couldn't figure out how. I have done that frequently on previous OSs. I have searched Win 7 knowledge bases on this also with no luck.
So that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.
Probably a much longer answer than you were expecting. Thanks for listening.
What Dell do you have? Setting the boot order is in BIOS not windows and it should allow you to change that option. Perhaps you're just not looking in the right place in the BIOS.
Btw, a longer explanation is better than a short one or a two sentence one. Yours is fine.
Questions:
1. How are you connecting the drives externally? Are you using a USB enclosure or dock? More info, including the manufacturer and model of any enclosures or docking devices would be helpful.
2. What happens when you connect the drives internally? You Dell should have additional SATA and/or PATA connections for drives.
If connecting the drives internally, you may need to enable the IDE port in the BIOS as well as changing the boot order.
Regarding the boot order. I figured that out quick enough. I went into the BiOs again and found that it was so easy I overlooked it the first time. This has been true with other things in win 7, I am a big fan.
I have two enclosures and a dock. One of the enclosures is Radio Shack. so I don't have a lot of confidence in that one; the other is Acomdata which worked fine before. The dock is an AGPtek USB to SATA/IDE adapter cable which has both SATA and PATA plugs. Looking on the box just now I see that it says it supports Windows 2000 through Vista - no Win 7, maybe that's a problem. I have swapped the hard drives through all three of thesQuote:
Originally Posted by jdc2000
The one external that is working is an Acronis that came as a unit (I.e. hard drive in an enclosure). I could try swapping it out with the other drives to see if they worked in that enclosure, but that drive has all my backups so I am spooked about messing with it.
I have not attempted to do that. I have been reluctant to open the machine. The disc drives in the machine are SATA so I am assuming the open port will have SATA connectors but I have not checked to see if PATA is available. Do you think it is possible to tell without opening the box?Quote:
Originally Posted by jdc2000
Have a look in Device Manager to see what controllers you have. Chances are you have at least one PATA channel free. Or, you can always get a PCI IDE controller card (Promise or other).
If you post which Dell you have, I can go look to see if there is any PATA ports. These branded computers do some odd things at times.
Thank you Photolady, but i can do that. I'll go to the Dell site and see what's up.Quote:
Originally Posted by photolady
Here's a thing that's bothering me. One of the reasons that I wanted to get one of these drives up was so that I could load it up with my backups and put it in a safety deposit box. But, if I'm not going to be able to access it because of some fluke in some hardware, that kinda defeats my purpose. Long term storage is still a problem. I haven't seen any good solutions. A Pocket full of SD cards? or thumbdrives? Nothing seems real stable.
Things to try:
1. Try a different USB port on the computer, or a Firewire or eSata port of the external adapters support those. The ports on the back of the case that are actually on the motherboard would be the best.
2. Check NewEgg for reviews of different IDE to USB adapters to see if there is a better one that might work for you.
3. Get a removable drive bay that can plug into the motherboard drive connections.