Hi everyone, As the title suggests, I have a Vantec NexStar 3 external HDD enclosure and a Seagate 7200.11 SATA2 HDD that I'm trying to mount. Here's the problem: I have no idea what I'm doing and the instructions aren't exactly helpful. I've obviously never worked with an external enclosure before. It comes with an SATA to eSATA bracket, but since my board doesn't support eSATA, I'm assuming (keyword: assuming), I won't need that. However, even with that out of the equation, I'm still lost. Can anyone give me some directions? Thanks. :)

Are the enclosure and drive separate units or did you buy as an assembled unit? Did the enclosure come with a USB cable? Assumming separate, you need to install the drive into the enclosure. SATA drives have no Master/slave jumper settings but sometimes do have a jumper on the drive to force the drive to run at SATA I speeds. When using a SATA II compatible enclosure that would not be an issue. Once the harddrive is installed into the enclosure you simply connect the power cable to the correct AC current and connect the USB cable to a USB port on your computer. If a newer computer all ports should be USB 2.0. If an older computer with a mix of USB 1.1 & 2.0 you should try to use a USB 2.0 port for faster transfer speeds. With your processor I would guess you may have the mix. The USB ports that are attached directly to the MBoard should be USB 2.0. Once the cable is connected you should see an Icon appear near the clock showing a USB device has been recognised. If the drive was bought separately it probably isn't partitioned or formatted. Look for the drive in My Computer. It would be the highest drive letter. If it doesn't show there then you need to look for it in Disk management. In disk management you will need to first partition and then format the drive. To find disk management: Right click My Computer> choose Manage> storage> disk management. Highlight the external drive and assign a letter if not already done. Then partition and format using the available menu selections there. If you intend to use the removable drive on a computer running Win95/98/ME you will need to format using FAT32. Otherwise format using NTFS. You also can partition the drive should you have a need for more than one partition on that drive. Each partition in that case can be formatted differently. I.E. 1-FAT32 & 1-NTFS.

WOW! An exceptional post by Othehill! It should have covered all the information that would possibly be required.

Yes, that is indeed an exceptional post. I bought the enclosure seperately and the problem I'm having is simply getting the drive mounted inside the enclosure (I apolgize, I should have been clearer). Basically, I've got the USB cable, an eSATA cable and a SATA to eSATA bracket and I have no idea how to fit it all together. Thanks again.

From a Google search it appears that you have the wrong type of drive for that enclosure. It is built to accept an IDE (PATA) drive. The drive that you have is a SATA drive. You will have to take back one of them and get a matching unit. I would suggest keeping the SATA drive and getting a SATA enclosure. SATA & PATA (Edit) OOOOPS. A little more searching turned up the fact that there appears to be both PATA and SATA Vantec NexStar 3 enclosures. What is it that you are having trouble with? Is it connecting the enclosure to the PC? If so, it 'looks' like it's a USB to USB connection and the ESATA stuff can be ignored.

Post the exact model of the enclosure. As aegis has stated there seem to be multiple units with that name.

Sorry, I'm still dying with the flu and wasn't around yesterday. Yes, it's the correct model (the eSATA one, I can't find an actual model name on the box). The problem I'm having is getting it in the actual enclosure. And yes, it's USB to USB. Thanks.