first and foremost let me say i am constantly learning about computers every day as i am fairly new to them. i have a standard Dell PC and i am running windows XP. I have 2 external harddrives on it now. F: is a Maxtor and G: is a Western Digital. I use these mostly of my collection of live concerts and other lossless audio files. I purchased a 3rd Simpletech HD to help me catalog some music but when i tried to plug it in it would set up but then i was unable to access my other two hard drives. assuming i was only able to connect to externals to my PC i unistalled the WD HD and install the Simpletech. when i did this it would not read my maxtor in drive F. Is there a limit to how many i can have installed? or Is there a certain way they should be plugged in to the USB 2.0 ports? I have 6 ports all together. 2 in the front of the tower and 4 in the back Please will one of you computer gurus that seem to solve a million problems a day take the time to help a young grasshopper. any help will be greatly appreciated thanks ed
so i think i have partially figured it out. i have all 3 installed and all 3 are working, but, not at the same time. i can run the F: and H: if i have one plugged in the front and one in the back. that tells me i can only run two externals at a time. Now, can anyone tell me a way to run all 3 at once please thanks ed
did the Simpletech HD come as 1 piece or did you have to insert the hd into the enclosure as you did for the wd & maxtor? take a look at Simpletech site for their faq to see if others had similar problem as it might not like the other 2 drives. does it have it's own power supply?
yes it came as one piece and yes it does have its own power supply. i am now unable to tranfer data from my maxtor to my internal or to my simpletech. something is not right. i will check out the simpletech site. thanks for the advice so far any other ideas? ed
okay, i am back from work overnight. i have not had much luck trying different things. i did find this out however. my other 2 externals are formatted FAT32. this hd is formatted NTFS. do i need to reformat this and if so how do i go about doing that. i have windows xp SP2. also to creaky you wrote creaky (Moderator) 24. September 2006 @ 05:42 make sure the jumper settings on that 3rd one is correct - the jumper needs to be set to 'Master' how do i go about doing this. i feel i am in way over my head as i am a novice so let me say a big thanks to everyone in advance. ed
being the Simpletech HD is a 1 piece unit than can't change jumper as it is on the hd inside the case. leave the format alone as can have both fat32 & ntfs with xp.
i have searched and cant find a tutorial or any help on simpletechs site. does anyone have 3 externals on their PC and running windows xp who could tell me how they did it and if they had any problems still not getting it right. ed
