internal to external drive problem

[kegman0002]

I just got a 40g notebook hard drive and wanted to convert it to an external drive. I bought a case that you put the hard drive in and it will convert to usb for both connection and power. When I plugged it into my notebook (compaq presario) windows xp found the new hardware, recognized it was a usb mass storage drive but could not finish installing it. It is not listed under my computer where the hard drives are. If i go to device manager the usb mass storage has a yellow exclamation point but theres nothing i can do to get the device working properly....someone please help me? do i need a jumper on the hard drive, do i need to format it? what do i do and how if it cant recognize it.

[Catweazle]

Ensure Windows XP is fully updated. You should not need extra drivers, as Windows XP can adequately cater to such drives without third party drivers for the USB drive. Only earlier Windows versions require drivers for the device.

But perhaps the motherboard chipset drivers are not up to date and not catering to this more recent form of device via USB. Check the HP (Compaq) website at www.hp.com and in the support section you should find driver downloads for your particular model of Compaq Presario. Make sure you have the latest version of the motherboard drivers.

If necessary afterwards, uninstall the device from Device manager, unplug it, reboot and allow it to be reinstalled. Again, the drive itself should NOT need drivers.

P.S. If you've actually installed drivers off a disk, they would have been for Windows 98 ;)

[kegman0002]

everything is up to date, xp and drivers from hp....any other thoughts