External drives for Dell Inspiron 531

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Posted by Allen on April 12, 2009, 2:50 pm

I have a Dell Inspiron 531 with Vista Home Premium, SR1. The motherboard
supports only SATA drives. I have several ATA and PATA drives that I
would like to install in USB remote boxes and access through USB ports.
So far, I have not gotten the system to recognize that any of the drives
is attached to the computer, let alone read them. Would an auxiliary
PATA card with USB ports allow me to access these drives? Also, I would
prefer to get a card that also includes eSATA ports, as I would like to
use SATA drives for backup. Any advice will be more than welcome.
Allen

Posted by Pen on April 12, 2009, 8:58 pm

Allen wrote:

> I have a Dell Inspiron 531 with Vista Home Premium, SR1. The motherboard
> supports only SATA drives. I have several ATA and PATA drives that I
> would like to install in USB remote boxes and access through USB ports.
> So far, I have not gotten the system to recognize that any of the drives
> is attached to the computer, let alone read them. Would an auxiliary
> PATA card with USB ports allow me to access these drives? Also, I would
> prefer to get a card that also includes eSATA ports, as I would like to
> use SATA drives for backup. Any advice will be more than welcome.
> Allen

I've had the exact same problem and fixed
it by assigning a drive letter. I used Partition Magic,
but Disk Management will do the same thing.
ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Storage/DiskManagement

Posted by Tom E on April 13, 2009, 1:11 am

> Allen wrote:

>> I have a Dell Inspiron 531 with Vista Home Premium, SR1. The motherboard
>> supports only SATA drives. I have several ATA and PATA drives that I
>> would like to install in USB remote boxes and access through USB ports.
>> So far, I have not gotten the system to recognize that any of the drives
>> is attached to the computer, let alone read them. Would an auxiliary PATA
>> card with USB ports allow me to access these drives? Also, I would prefer
>> to get a card that also includes eSATA ports, as I would like to use SATA
>> drives for backup. Any advice will be more than welcome.
>> Allen

> I've had the exact same problem and fixed
> it by assigning a drive letter. I used Partition Magic,
> but Disk Management will do the same thing.
> ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
> Management/Storage/DiskManagement

and the shortcut is when in Windows Explorer, RMC My Computer.....Manage.

Posted by Allen on April 14, 2009, 8:43 pm

Tom E wrote:

>> Allen wrote:

>>> I have a Dell Inspiron 531 with Vista Home Premium, SR1. The motherboard
>>> supports only SATA drives. I have several ATA and PATA drives that I
>>> would like to install in USB remote boxes and access through USB ports.
>>> So far, I have not gotten the system to recognize that any of the drives
>>> is attached to the computer, let alone read them. Would an auxiliary PATA
>>> card with USB ports allow me to access these drives? Also, I would prefer
>>> to get a card that also includes eSATA ports, as I would like to use SATA
>>> drives for backup. Any advice will be more than welcome.
>>> Allen

>> I've had the exact same problem and fixed
>> it by assigning a drive letter. I used Partition Magic,
>> but Disk Management will do the same thing.
>> ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
>> Management/Storage/DiskManagement

>
> and the shortcut is when in Windows Explorer, RMC My Computer.....Manage.
>
>

Thanks, Pen and Tom E. But I still can't get my machine to know that a
drive is attached. I hate Vista with a passion.
Allen

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