IDE to USB enclosure problems

LYHTSPD · 12-19-2007, 03:09 PM

I bought an external enclosure to use my Panasonic UJ-825 dvd drive on my usb bus. I got the unit from ebay, but it looks exactly like the one from the mp3car store.

I hooked it up to my desktop at home using the PS/2 power adapter and the supplied 3ft usb cable. The drive will power up and be seen by XP (Device Manager shows both the USB Mass Storage Device and the Ma****a UJ-825 USB drive). I can put in a disk and it will spin up, make a sound like the head moves, and then stops and starts the whole process again. It even shows up in Drive Manager as a listed drive. I tried my notebook to ide (40 pin) converter and it works fine.

I have also tried the drive on my wife's desktop with the same results. I then took it to work and tried it on my work laptop (Dell Latitude) and it works. It also works on my P.O.S. Gateway laptop at home. All machines are running XP SP2.

I have downloaded all the current drivers from Panasonic and updated my motherboard bios. The one thing I noticed different from my laptops and my desktop is that there is an "Intel PCI to USB" driver on the laptop and just a "Standard Enhanced PCI to USB" driver on my desktop. My desktop is an AMD processor using the 939 chip set, all other machines are Intel.

I am at a loss here. Google searches have not helped much. Can anyone help me?

qha_vn · 12-19-2007, 10:59 PM

looks like it lacks of power supply. Does your box have an additional power input (with a wall adapter)?

alternatively you can plug in BOTH 2 USB ports into your computer if the provided cable has 2 at PC end

LYHTSPD · 12-20-2007, 07:29 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by qha_vn

looks like it lacks of power supply. Does your box have an additional power input (with a wall adapter)?

alternatively you can plug in BOTH 2 USB ports into your computer if the provided cable has 2 at PC end

I already did that...

Quote: Originally Posted by In my OP

I hooked it up to my desktop at home using the PS/2 power adapter...

JimmyFitz · 12-20-2007, 08:53 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by qha_vn

looks like it lacks of power supply. Does your box have an additional power input (with a wall adapter)?

The problem seems to be not enough power to run. Use the wall wart and see if that makes a difference.

LYHTSPD · 12-20-2007, 09:14 AM

Why would be a lack of power? I have the data pluged into the usb and it came with a power cable to either plug into a PS/2 port or another usb for power. I am using the PS/2 port for power on the desktop. When I plug it into the laptops, I am NOT using any other external power. How is there more power on a laptop usb port than a desktop usb port?

JimmyFitz · 12-20-2007, 02:38 PM

USB optical drives act up when they are not getting enough current. USB ports are limited to .5A each. The drive uses the most current when it starts up loading and spinning a disk. It will take more than one USB port can give to make it work. That is why they put a second USB plug or a PS2 plug on there as well. What we are telling you is that if you already tried those and it still doesn't work, you need to try the power brick that came with the adapter because it will probably make a difference.

LYHTSPD · 12-20-2007, 02:58 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by JimmyFitz

USB optical drives act up when they are not getting enough current. USB ports are limited to .5A each. The drive uses the most current when it starts up loading and spinning a disk. It will take more than one USB port can give to make it work. That is why they put a second USB plug or a PS2 plug on there as well. What we are telling you is that if you already tried those and it still doesn't work, you need to try the power brick that came with the adapter because it will probably make a difference.

And I am trying to tell you guys that when I hook it up to two different laptops with the USB data plug ONLY, it works. No extra power plug is needed on the laptops. Now why would it work with a single USB data plug in a laptop (two different laptops at that) and NOT work with a single USB data plug on two different desktops OR with the USB data plug AND the PS/2 power adapter?

JimmyFitz · 12-20-2007, 08:32 PM

It wasn't obvious that you had ever gotten it to work 100%. Now that you have clarified that OK. But I have that same drive in a similar enclosure and it came with a 2Amp power brick. It always works when I use that to power it. If I try the other methods, sometimes it fails just like yours does when spinning up. The failure is from not enough power.

As for why some USB ports can provide enough current and others don't it has to do with internal circuits on that model. If you can get away with it on some consider that lucky.

LYHTSPD · 12-20-2007, 10:17 PM

I have some 5v bricks around here somewhere. I guess I will have to hack off the power plug and try that. I apologize if I seemed to get a bit snippy earlier in my posts. This thing has gotten the best of my I fear.

Thanks for the advice. I will post back with the results. Do you know what the actual drive requirements are for amperage? 2A seems a bit overkill.

JimmyFitz · 12-21-2007, 12:17 AM

It will draw a little more than 1A when spinning the disk and reading. I don't know about surges, or what it draws when burning, only what average I have measured before while reading. A 5V@2A wall wart is what my adapter came with. My enclosure also has a firewire interface. No external power needed when using the firewire.

customaudioman · 12-21-2007, 12:34 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by JimmyFitz

It will draw a little more than 1A when spinning the disk and reading. I don't know about surges, or what it draws when burning, only what average I have measured before while reading. A 5V@2A wall wart is what my adapter came with. My enclosure also has a firewire interface. No external power needed when using the firewire.

like you said, it going to be the current draw. I had a panasonic slim drive in external case, but it did come with a power brick. I want to say it was 2Amp at 5v which tells me the cd drive is going to draw 10watts of power! A usb port does not even have enough of current to spin the drive to play anything. Weird how he got it to work just on usb ports alone on other machines.

LYHTSPD · 01-02-2008, 08:23 AM

Update: Over my vacation I dug out on old 5vdc power supply and hooked it up to the enclosure. I tested it on my desktop... no luck. I tried it on my fresh install of XP (nlite'd) on my carPC, and it works. That is so strange. Anyway, it works on the computer that I had bought it for, so I guess I am going to close the book on this mystery. Thanks again for the advice guys.

irhiggs · 01-03-2008, 10:50 AM

FYI...

Some USB ports (even though there two are available) are powered on the same USB bus which means they may fight each other for current while trying to maintain the same voltage. It is much like hooking two lights to the same power source.

Likewise, some USB Busses may share the same rail (from the Power Supply) and have the same conflict, but at a less noticeable interference.

Laptops generally have better power to the USB ports because the motherboards are designed better to work with their power supplies. On my laptop, there are 4 USB ports and 3 USB Busses. It is easy for me to know which two ports are shared because neither one can charge my phone while my external drive is hooked to the other. Additionally laptops have more power available on the rails because other components are designed to use much less current and lower spikes than your desktop (even though your laptop PSU has less total power).

I would suggest using seperate busses for cases like this. Usually there is a USB pin header on the MB for the front USB ports. If you use that for the power while using the other for the data, it should have sufficient current to spin that CD.

hollow · 05-20-2008, 12:20 PM

i too have a similar dilema with a dvd drive
the drive worked fine in the house when the car pc was been tested

out in the car its a different story

i have supplied 5v direct to the power plug on the back of the enclosure , and then connected the usb lead to a seperate usb port

sometimes the pc detects the device as mass storage unit will spin up the disk but it does not install the drive and cant use it

i changed the usb cable to a usb repeater cable thinking it was signal degration but that doesnt make a difference

going nuts here

something so simple is proving the hardest thing to get working