IDE drive as "plug-and-play" USB ?

Most likely, if the owner/proprietor of that computer has used his brain and
some common sense, autoplay is disabled on all removeable devices, and maybe
he's disabled access to them, too....



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Most learned on these newsgroups
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<stuseven.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> kirjoitti
viestissä:1133639741.767915.285900@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> +
> I've got an IDE drive, with a simple cable type
> USB cord and power attachment... these work on
> my home computer.
>
> What I want to do is add a small set of system
> files to the IDE drive, to make it operate like a
> "plug-n-play" USB drive... is this possible ?
>
> My intent here is to simply have something
> which will work at a public terminal... I've used
> "flash drives" there, but these usually do not have
> the capacity I need.
>
> I have a nice big desk area, with access to a
> power outlet for the adapter, and a computer that
> takes a USB plug... what do I need to put on this
> IDE drive so the computer will pick up on it as a
> USB drive ?
>
> Thanks
>
 >> Stay informed about: IDE drive as "plug-and-play" USB ? 

perhaps I should clarify... "autorun" or "autoplay"
is not what I'm looking for... all I need is a connection
from my USB cord drive to a USB terminal on a
computer... as mentioned, this works fine with the
small flash drive type USB devices
 >> Stay informed about: IDE drive as "plug-and-play" USB ? 

<stuseven RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1133905573.123383.62450@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> perhaps I should clarify... "autorun" or "autoplay"
> is not what I'm looking for... all I need is a connection
> from my USB cord drive to a USB terminal on a
> computer... as mentioned, this works fine with the
> small flash drive type USB devices
>
If I understand your messages your external IDE drive is using a
non-standard IDE cable (looking similar to USB) but is still running IDE?
If so your best bet is to get one of the external IDE/USB cases and stick
your IDE drive in it. I have seen them sell for less than $20. bucks on
EBay.

If on the other hand your drive/cable combination is working plugged into an
actual USB port on your home computer then the problems with the other
computers can be a couple of things.

1. The computer your plugging it into that fails to work is running an older
OS than XP and has only loaded drivers to support a few specific external
USB devices, like a particular flash drive or two.

2. Your drive might be formatted in FAT32 or NTFS and the system you are
trying to use it on is configured to only talk with FAT formatted drives.
If your using NTFS try reformatting it to use FAT32 or even just plain FAT.
FAT is what many of the flash drives use and you might be more compatible
with an existing driver on the machine using it.

A local library near me has machines that only work with my iRiver flash
drive or my USB external drive when they are formatted using the FAT method.

3. The owner of the computer is running a security program that is allowing
external devices to connect to the USB port but with a drive size limit set
at 1 or 2 GB, as in flash drives only, not external USB hard drives.

Hope this helps get things working for you.
 >> Stay informed about: IDE drive as "plug-and-play" USB ?