How to Install an External Hard Drive Enclosure

This is a tutorial on installing a hard drive or optical drive (CD, DVD, DVD Burner) for use with a USB Enclosure or Adapter. There are no products in this page. If you would like to purchase external enclosure cases, please go to our External Enclosure Cases Store.

• The drive jumper settings should be configured to "Master" mode for all 3.5" and 5.25" IDE/ATAPI drives. 2.5" notebook harddrives have no required jumper settings so there should not be any jumper on the 4 available Master/Slave jumper pins.
• Check the top label of the drive for a diagram of the jumper settings particular to your drive. You may find the jumper settings diagram on the "end" of the drive as well above the actual jumper pins. Some drive manufacturers engrave "MA" (Master), "SL" (Slave), or "CS" (Cable Select) above the corresponding pins as well.
• Western Digital harddrives typically have a jumperless "Single Device Master" setting. If you have a Western Digital harddrive, try pulling the plastic jumper(s) completely off before use. This defaults the drive to Single Device Master.
• IBM/Hitachi harddrives typically have the jumper diagram printed on the side of the harddrive. End users will typically want to set the drives to "Device 0 (Master)" but choose the settings diagram for "16 Heads."
• Some 2.5" IDE notebook harddrives have an extra adapter or caddy connected to the IDE pins if the harddrive was previously installed in a laptop. Please be sure to remove the extra adapter or caddy to reveal the IDE pins.
• Be sure to plug all necessary cables and adapters in before turning on the power. Connect the USB cable after the drive powers up.
• Harddrives with existing data should be recognized immediately unless formatted incorrectly for the OS or the harddrive is defective/corrupted itself. New harddrives must be formatted and partitioned with a filesystem that is compatible with the end user's OS.
• Windows 95 and NT do not natively support USB so this adapter will not be compatible with those operating systems.
• If you are using Windows 98SE or Windows ME, be sure that the harddrive
  is formatted and partitioned for the FAT32 filesystem (not NTFS). Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista are compatible with NTFS and FAT32 (NTFS is preferred). It is possible for Mac OSX to read and write to a harddrive formatted for FAT32 as well but if you are using Mac OSX, it is recommended to format the harddrive to a filesystem that is fully compatible with Mac OS such as HFS+.
• To format a new harddrive (or reformat an old one) in Windows 2000/XP, go to Control Panel > Computer Management > Disc Management (after expanding "Storage"). Alternatively, to get to Disc Management, right click on the My Computer icon and then choose "Manage." The new harddrive should show up as having "Unallocated Space" under Disc Management. You will need to right click on the drive and initialize it (only if it is a brand new harddrive). Sometimes you may have to "write a Signature" to the drive as well (there will be a menu selection for this). After initializing the drive, right click and choose "Format." The format wizard will pop up and will take you through the steps for formatting the drive. Be sure to choose the correct filesystem depending on which version of Windows you are running. Choosing quick format is optional. Once the formatting progress percentage completes, the harddrive will now be available for use under My Computer with your assigned or default drive letter.