USB TO IDE Cable? I need help on this one guys..

**Digital318is** · 09-14-2005, 12:50 AM

Alright, some of you might have saw my e36 carputer install... anyways to make a long story short, my harddrive isnt working anymore. Im assuming it died because of my subwoofer, i have my computer right next to it. but anyways.. my goal is to have the harddrive away from the pc inside my car and not in the trunk... so i was wondering if there is an ide cable that converts to usb, i have a 40gb usb harddrive i could use i was figuring i could do that... ive been researching about installing windows on a usb drive, but ive tried and ruined this 40gb hard drive and had to return it for a new one lol.. apparently u can not format it... idk so anyways its either a very long ide cable which ive yet to find or this ide to usb cable if there is such a thing. idk im getting kinda stressed out because i just bought a gps and made my install look really top notch everything ran under the rug and what not. any advice?

**EsKALad** · 09-14-2005, 01:01 AM

My Advice Is Search Better! But Ill Tell You Your Search Will Be Worth It. Because They Do Make It. Try Ide To Usb Converter On Ebay. My Opinion Is Buy A Laptop Hard Drive. Format It With A Desktop Computer Using An Adapter. Than Buy A Usb Housing From Ebay Or Such And Just Use A Usb Extension Cable And Put It Up Front. Good Luck

**Digital318is** · 09-14-2005, 01:13 AM

Originally Posted by EsKALad

My Advice Is Search Better! But Ill Tell You Your Search Will Be Worth It. Because They Do Make It. Try Ide To Usb Converter On Ebay. My Opinion Is Buy A Laptop Hard Drive. Format It With A Desktop Computer Using An Adapter. Than Buy A Usb Housing From Ebay Or Such And Just Use A Usb Extension Cable And Put It Up Front. Good Luck

Ive been searching the web for hours now lol.. i usually am good at finding stuff, but this ive had no luck. I think if i cant find anything in the next 2 days i might have to go that route of the laptop harddrive and usb adapter. I just have this io magic 40gb usb drive i paid 200 at the time and i dont want it to goto waste.

Does anyone else know a real working method for booting off the usb port? i read it is possible as i said b4 i tried and it messed up this harddrive. I was reading how to do it using a pendrive, i figured this harddrive woudl work the same but i guess it didnt. but if anyone has tried the notebook harddrive with usb connection please let me know exactly what you used and how you went about doing it. Thanks in advance!

**hateeecs** · 09-14-2005, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by Digital318is

Ive been searching the web for hours now lol.. i usually am good at finding stuff, but this ive had no luck. I think if i cant find anything in the next 2 days i might have to go that route of the laptop harddrive and usb adapter. I just have this io magic 40gb usb drive i paid 200 at the time and i dont want it to goto waste.

Does anyone else know a real working method for booting off the usb port? i read it is possible as i said b4 i tried and it messed up this harddrive. I was reading how to do it using a pendrive, i figured this harddrive woudl work the same but i guess it didnt. but if anyone has tried the notebook harddrive with usb connection please let me know exactly what you used and how you went about doing it. Thanks in advance!

The basic deal is that you need to have enough software loaded to get your hardware working, and then have your boot sequence be pointed to boot off the device.

The easiest way to get this done is to have a motherboard with BIOS support to initialize the device and BIOS support to boot from the device. All computers have IDE BIOS support and therefore allow you to boot from hard drives and CD roms. Newer ones have support for booting off USB keys.

So, assuming that you don't have software support in the bios, what can you do? Well get some hardware that can appear as an IDE device to your BIOS. I know that there are CF to IDE adapters out there that will do just that. Most of the USB to IDE hardware devices out there go in the opposite direction. They take something that is IDE and make appear as a USB device.

If you really what to make this happen with USB devices I would invest in a new MB that supports boot from USB.

Here is an example of the CF to IDE adapter
http://www.psism.com/adcf.htm

**Digital318is** · 09-14-2005, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by hateeecs

The basic deal is that you need to have enough software loaded to get your hardware working, and then have your boot sequence be pointed to boot off the device.

The easiest way to get this done is to have a motherboard with BIOS support to initialize the device and BIOS support to boot from the device. All computers have IDE BIOS support and therefore allow you to boot from hard drives and CD roms. Newer ones have support for booting off USB keys.

So, assuming that you don't have software support in the bios, what can you do? Well get some hardware that can appear as an IDE device to your BIOS. I know that there are CF to IDE adapters out there that will do just that. Most of the USB to IDE hardware devices out there go in the opposite direction. They take something that is IDE and make appear as a USB device.

If you really what to make this happen with USB devices I would invest in a new MB that supports boot from USB.

Here is an example of the CF to IDE adapter
http://www.psism.com/adcf.htm

My mother board does support USB HD boot. But the specific usb harddrive i have wont let me format it. I tried using that hp formatting tool and it ****ed up the harddrive, luckily i was able to bring it back to staples without a box or reciept lol. So when i got the new harddrive i immediately tried using it like that i plugged it directly in, made sure it was set to boot from it. I put my cd for windows 2000 in and made it auto boot the setup. When the setup was done initalizing it said that it couldnt find a harddrive. So im not exactly sure if the harddrive is capable. What i was thinking was, use a real ide harddrive install windows on that then copy everything to the usb drive. I figured that would work, i just havent tried it. I dont want to ruin that harddrive again. One thing i think happened when i tried installing windows is that the setup can not find usb enabled harddrives. So thats how i came to the conclusion of using an ide hd to install. The idea of the ide to usb came to mind, cuz i said well it would work exactly like an ide cuz it would be plugged into the same spot, but i dont think they make those, ive looked for hours.

**JPuma** · 09-14-2005, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by EsKALad

My Advice Is Search Better! But Ill Tell You Your Search Will Be Worth It. Because They Do Make It. Try Ide To Usb Converter On Ebay. My Opinion Is Buy A Laptop Hard Drive. Format It With A Desktop Computer Using An Adapter. Than Buy A Usb Housing From Ebay Or Such And Just Use A Usb Extension Cable And Put It Up Front. Good Luck

Whats with even word being capitalized, weird

**tj!2k4** · 09-14-2005, 11:44 AM

if you're having trouble making the drive bootable as a USB device, how about removing the drive from the case and using a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter to connect the laptop hard drive as an IDE hard drive in your computer, then complete the Windows installation. After that it's your choice if you want to leave it as an internal hard drive using the adapter, or return it to the USB enclosure.

**GezusK** · 09-14-2005, 11:59 AM

I've been using this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812156101

The best part is that one side is regular IDE, the other is for laptop drives. I haven't used it with a laptop drive yet, but I would guess it would be powered by the USB bus. NewEgg carries other ones too.

**DarquePervert** · 09-14-2005, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Digital318is

My mother board does support USB HD boot. But the specific usb harddrive i have wont let me format it. I tried using that hp formatting tool and it ****ed up the harddrive, luckily i was able to bring it back to staples without a box or reciept lol. So when i got the new harddrive i immediately tried using it like that i plugged it directly in, made sure it was set to boot from it. I put my cd for windows 2000 in and made it auto boot the setup. When the setup was done initalizing it said that it couldnt find a harddrive. So im not exactly sure if the harddrive is capable. What i was thinking was, use a real ide harddrive install windows on that then copy everything to the usb drive. I figured that would work, i just havent tried it. I dont want to ruin that harddrive again. One thing i think happened when i tried installing windows is that the setup can not find usb enabled harddrives. So thats how i came to the conclusion of using an ide hd to install. The idea of the ide to usb came to mind, cuz i said well it would work exactly like an ide cuz it would be plugged into the same spot, but i dont think they make those, ive looked for hours.

I don't think windows can install to a USB hard drive unless you specifically load drivers for USB during the Windows installation. There's a point where you press F6 to load external drivers (it shows this prompt on the bottom of the screen). I don't know if this is possible, because I have never done it.
A better solution would be to pull the hard drive out of the case,connect it to IDE, install Windows to it, then put it back into the USB assembly. You should be able to boot from it at that point.

Also, I doubt that your subs damaged your hard drives. It's possible I suppose, but not very likely.

**hateeecs** · 09-14-2005, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

I don't think windows can install to a USB hard drive unless you specifically load drivers for USB during the Windows installation. There's a point where you press F6 to load external drivers (it shows this prompt on the bottom of the screen). I don't know if this is possible, because I have never done it.
A better solution would be to pull the hard drive out of the case,connect it to IDE, install Windows to it, then put it back into the USB assembly. You should be able to boot from it at that point.

Also, I doubt that your subs damaged your hard drives. It's possible I suppose, but not very likely.

Yes, I would agree. Perhaps a windows driver for these kind of installs would be included in the packaging, or downloadable, etc. I also like the idea of just pulling the drive.