Hello there,

I bought an external HDD Enclosure 3.5' from HANTOL and want to connect my new SATA 2.0 internal HDD from Western Digital. The manual is kinda poor, it says I need to confirm that the hard-disk or CD-ROM is set as master mode, I don't know how to do that. It also says that the new hard disk should be divided into sections with FDISK first, which I don't know how do that either.

On a side note, I had bought an internal HDD and connected it via some other USB thingy again last year, but I don't remember to have touched the new disk (I mean with FDISK or something).

I am beginner here, so I would really appreciate any help

Hummmm - normally to set master and slave is for internal use on MB, If it is an external enclosure you can normally leave it in CS mode that comes set on it. CS is Cable select. If no on the panel you will see your jumper setting. Look here and it can show you how to put it in master mode. Do not think it is necessary though. After mount in your enclosure, attach usb to computer and power on the enclosure. Windows should do the rest on this one. It should recognize it if it has been formatted and partitioned. If no go to your disk manager and there is tools and help in there to partition, format and make it ready to use. It is actaully really simple to do this one and should take you less than 5 min. Good luck

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Iorana Haraharaini

Master/Slave/Cable Select settings are for PATA drives, not SATA. Are you sure you have the correct enclosure?

If the enclosure supports both SATA and PATA, then just plug in your SATA drive. No need to change any jumpers.

The following articles should help you initialise (partition) your drives.

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000

Using Disk Management in Windows 7 and Vista:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Using-Disk-Mana ... ws-7-Vista

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

When I connect it to the laptop, it says it can't be recognized. After a little research I found what the jumpers are, but I don't have any!

Please reply to this thread and attach photos (resized to something like 800x600px) of:
(a) the top (label) of the drive;
(b) the drive interface connector;
(c) the inside of the empty external enclosure, especially showing the interface connector that the drive attaches to;
(d) the inside of the enclosure after you have installed the disk drive into it;
(e) the exact error message on your screen when you say that it shows:


Can you feel/hear the disk drive start spinning when you plug-in the enclosure power and plug-in the USB cable to the laptop?

Have you got any other disks which you can use to test that the enclosure is working?

Looking over the replies above it appears that the advice given in the prior posts is excellent.

This is a SATA drive so you do not need to worry about jumpers / master / slave / CS.

I could be wrong, but the links below are likely your HDD enclosure. If that is it then it is the Hantol HB35S enclosure.

http://www.hantol.cn/main.asp?item=4733&idcat=10010
http://www.hantol.cn/public/HB35S.pdf
http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/catalog_v2 ... pe=product

That enclosure is only able to handle up to a 750 GB drive. I hope you did not buy a 1/1.5/2 TB drive.

There really shouldn't be long instructions for this setup. It is pretty generic. Be careful in step 2 not to damage the connectors. It is best to do steps 2 + 3 while you and the enclosure are grounded.

1. open the enclosure
2. connect the disk drive electrically to the interface board (lay flat/slide in) - CAREFUL
3. connect the disk drive mechanically to the enclosure (bolt it in/etc.)
4. close the enclosure - do not over tighten and strip the threads - CAREFUL
5. plug in the power adapter to the disk drive enclosure with the power off
6. boot the laptop and login
7. connect the USB cable from the disk drive enclosure to the laptop
8. turn the power on by the disk drive enclosure power switch
9. wait 1 minute (or less) then start the disk management software on your laptop

If you are using any modern version of Windows you should not need FDISK. The disk management software will take care of that. See the disk management links provided by fzabkar.

To provide further specific advice please tell us:
- your OS
- what is the exact disk drive model number (for example WD3200AAKX or WD1600AAJS)

Please answer the questions Vulcan asked. If you can please give the images Vulcan asks for ... particularly (c) (d) and (e).

Please describe what actions you take right before you get the error message. Please give us the exact text of the error message.