Hey, recently my computer's power supply went bust and so after a series of problems with it I have given up and instead now use the laptop I own.

I had 2 hard drives within my Computer. One a Western Digital WD800 and the other a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB hard Drive. I didn't want to loose the files already contained on both these hard drives so invested in a R-Drive USB 2.0 to IDE cable. I read the instructions and hooked it up. The power works and you can feel and hear the hard drive running. Although when I plugged the USB cable into my laptop (an Acer Aspire 3610) it didn't recognize it, nothing happened. I saw a CD that came with it and it said that no drivers were needed for XP Home which runs on Service Pack 2. my Laptop contains 4 USB 2.0 slots and not one of them would pick up the device. Other devices like my MP3 and my Digital camera have both been recognized but the hard drives are not. The USB used with the cables is a USB 2.0. I've tried everything from different plug holes to different ways of putting the cables in (i.e. Power than IDE or IDE than power) but nothing seems to work, am I doing something wrong? Please help!

Many Many thanks for any help given!

I know the CD said no drivers were needed for Win XP but if there are some there - try them anyway!

I was reading this review on a IDE to USB cable: http://www.dansdata.com/usbadapt.htm . Seems they also had a problem although their's was sorted out by booting up with the USB plugged in then once the PC was booted, removed the lead, plugged it back in and then XP found the device.

Also, have you checked that Device Manager to see if there is any unknown devices in there that may related to this hard drive/adapter combo?

Well I've tried booting and re attaching but nothing was recognized and there's no strange devices in the Device Manager. I've also installed all drivers that contained anything XP off the Disc but it still is not responding.

Thanks for the help anyway.

Hey thanks for the help but I finally solved it. The Outdated version of Norton was somehow blocking it getting in, as soon as I uninstalled it and installed Avast AntiVirus, I hooked it up and it recognized it. Thanks again.