2.5" Drive Enclosure - USB and power requirments

[Chuck Garabedian]

I'm wondering if someone can provide some advice on this.

I have a Hitachi 40GB travelstar hard drive that is a couple years old. I bought a relatively cheap Mediasonic Blue Eyes enclosure for it but when I plug it directly into my computer USB port to power it the drive does not work and I get a Windows notification that not enough power is supplied.

I have a special cord that can power the drive with 2 usb ports but all thr drive does is clicks because it's not getting enough power. Finally, with an external AC adapter the dive will pwoer up and works fine.

I tried the drive with a friends Dynex enclosure and it works great directly off the USB.

So my question is - what do you look for spec wise in an enclosure so that the drive will run off USB. The reason I have a 2.5 drive/enclosure so that it's portable and I don't have to carry around an AC adapter and host of cords.

Anyone out there recommend a good enclosure for this problem. I am currently looking for a Dynex one that matches my friends.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[goofball]

Sounds just like a defective enclosure.
I power many different drives off of the 2-head and single head cable.
The only ones that I'm aware of that won't power properly would be the 7200rpm and higher ones.

[number84]

i agree...i bought a cheap one from ncix...for 10 bucks...and it works fine for me...even using just one usb connection...