Windows 7 and external HDD's

CAn u get caddies that dont work with win7?

Plug the drives into the machine and then go into Disk Manager:

- Start -> Right-click "Computer" -> Manage
- Click "Disk Manager" in the left-hand pane.

The drives show show up in the lower part of the right pane. If the disk map doesn't show partitions with drive letters assigned to them, then right-click in on the disk and create a partition and then assign a drive letter to it.

nope nothing in that pane except the C drive and the CD-Rom :S

In device manager it comes up as generic USB hub in the USB section when i plug it in but thats all that happens.

Would there be a problem as the HDD was an external for a XP machine before?

Do the drives require an external power supply?

Is there a switch or button on the drives that you need to press or set to turn the drives on?

Have you tried shutting the machine down, plugging the drives in, and then booting? That would isolate the issue to dynamic recognition of the device.

yup has external power supply, yes there is a switch too.

Restarted the computer with HDD already running and still nothing  

Have tried it on my win7 PC and his but doesnt like either off these  

What kind of hard drives are they? I've been reading posts on a different site that talk about problems with some LaCie drives with certain motherboard chipsets.

Are they plugged into a USB Hub? If not Try plugging them into different USB busses (ie one in the back of the PC and one in the front) Sometimes HDDs do use power from the USB even when they're plugged in and this can cause them not to recognise a usb hard drive if they're both in the same bus. Also do either of the HDDs work seperately? When you plug them in put it up to your ear, if it makes a regular clicking/ticking sound, it means the drive is damaged and if it makes a whirring sound and a couple of irregular clicks it is powering up ok.

not using a Hub and have tried the slots at the back and front of PC.
as it stands atm i'm tryingto use:

They are both Maxtor diamondmax plus 9 drives (120GB/250GB). One is in a Coolmaster Xcraft RX-3HU enclosure and the other in a Eye-T HP-5252.

I'm not sure if these caddies work with Win vista/Win 7. Could it just be a case of getting some new caddies?

The enclosure shouldn't make a difference... I'd suspect the drives, cables or USB drivers. What happens when you plug them in? You should hear a sound upon connecting and disconnecting them from the computer. Are the USB ports enabled and working with other devices?

Yes there is a sound made when connecting and disconnecting them and like i said it shows up in device manager as generic USB hub. and I have a USB keyboard, mouse and headset. Also I use the front USB for a gaming controller sometimes.

They should probably be called "enclosures" and not "caddies". "Caddy" is usually used for a physical adapter that contains no electronics.

The enclosures *should* work, and it's unlikely that two different types of enclosures would *both* refuse to work. But I'm a bit of a loss to explain why neither one works. I suppose something to try would be to remove the hard drives from the enclosures and see if they work as bare drives attached directly to the motherboard. That could narrow down the problem...

I took the drive out of the enclosure and plugged it in via an IDE and it works fine. Are there some enclosures that just don't work with win7? and also would i need to mess around with jumpers on the HDD?

If you use an IDE drive in an enclosure then the jumpers on the drive should be set so that it's the "master". If that wasn't done then it could account for the problem.

I have heard of some issues with eSATA enclosure chipsets not working with certain motherboard chipsets. I don't recall hearing those kinds of issues with USB, but anything is possible.

Have already set it to master and that had no impact  

Also I was just looking on the coolmaster website for tech support and the only form is in german or something.

Stupid things doing my head in lol

It worked for me.
I had an esata drive that I used as an external drive for a Comcast DVR and computer wouldn't recognize it.
Thanks.