Windows 7 Internal HDD converted to External HDD

[schlitz1231]

Hi, I currently have 2 HDD's

1 - Western Digital 640 GB (SATA), partitioned into 450 GB and 190 GB
2 - Seagete 160 GB (IDE), paritioned into 100 GB and 60 GB

When I installed windows 7 (fresh install), all four partitions were recognized properly. Though the drive letter assignment was a little weird, I left it as is since that was the default assignment.

WD 190 - C:
WD 450 - F:
SG 60 - D:
SG 100 - E:

Now I took out the Seagate Drive and placed it in an external enclosure. When I plug in the external casing to the USB port, the installation would take a very long time, and when I go to Explorer and go inside the drive, explorer would crash.

I tried this on my other computer running win XP and it loaded fine. I also tried it with my sister's laptop also running Win7, initially it took a long time to install, but after that, it also loaded properly.

Is it possible that the problem is because the harddrive was there when I installed win7, then when I removed it, there was some sort of problem with the mappings or something (sorry about this, I'm not familiar with harddrive mappings/disk management, I'm just guessing that it could possibly be the cause)

My PC's specs:
Win7 Desktop - E5200 (2.5GHz), 2 GB DDR2 Ram, P5QL-Pro (P43 Chipset)
Win XP Desktop - Pentium 3 (733), 512MB Ram, no idea about the motherboard. hehe
Win7 Laptop - T4200 (2.0 GHz I think), 1GB Ram


Thanks!

 

[zigzag3143]

what kind of external enclosure.

ken

 

[schlitz1231]

what kind of external enclosure.

ken

I think its a generic External 3.5" case for HDD's. There's only "3.5 inch USB 2.0 HDD Enclosure" (or something like that) written on one side of the case.

 

[Highwayman]

you should be able to force the drive letter assignments so that the usb drive is last HD on letters to avoid any issues using "Admin tools / Computer Management / Storage / Disk Management" snap-in tool

 

[schlitz1231]

you should be able to force the drive letter assignments so that the usb drive is last HD on letters to avoid any issues using "Admin tools / Computer Management / Storage / Disk Management" snap-in tool

Ok, I'll have to try that out this weekend ( I only go home during the weekends, and that's where the PC's are.) I'll post again after testing. Thanks!

 

[schlitz1231]

Hi again, I was able to re-map the drives to the last letters and it worked. The load time for the external harddisk is significantly faster now. Thanks for the tip Highwayman!

 

[Highwayman]

Hi again, I was able to re-map the drives to the last letters and it worked. The load time for the external harddisk is significantly faster now. Thanks for the tip Highwayman!

Anytime