i just bought a new desktop computer. My old hard drive is a maxtor 500gb ata internal. It wont fit in my new computer so i bought 2 usb enclosures. 1 is a nexxtech hard drive enclosure ata and the other is a iomagic 2.0 usb enclosure. neither one mention vista on the box they both mention xp, me 98 but not vista. i've try'd to install both but nothing is working. my computer recognized both products when i installed and plugged the usb in but when i click on my computer no drive has been mounted, i've looked in control panel and everything but I can't find the drive. So is there anything i can dl to fix the problem? also this new computer came with Vista, is there a free way to downgrade to xp or anything to make it like xp for programs that don't run on vista? because i'm running into too much crap with Vista and many programs aren't compatabile. thanks

right click on system, scroll down to manage, then scroll down to disk management, right click the drive that is the usb and format. Then it should show up. Jim R

thanks for your response, the directions you gave me dont seem to corespond with my os. if you can be a give me the directions elementary style since i'm not a cpu wiz? i saw a system in control panel, i right clicked and went to device manager then disk drives i see my usb drive but when i click--it opens Device Properties, i clicked everything in there but i still cant open or find where the drive is. i'm using vista, also you said format when i format that wont erase the data on my hard drive? thanks very much for your help

Do not format!!! you will lose all your data on that drive. Try plugging the USB connection into the rear USB connection. Another possibility is the hdd box you have is an old type that can't handle the large 500gig drive. Go to a reputable computer shop and buy one that is guarentied to work with 500gig drives.

ok i see what your talking about, i right clicked my computer (system) disk management, etc.. but my maxtor hard drive (usb enclosure) isn't showing up. it's only showing up in device manager. any help please, thanks

Have you tried restarting the computer with Maxtor connected and turned on to see if it's picked up on restart. A message saying new hardware/device found would be nice.

im having the same problem too :( on my laptop, i have a maxtor 500gb ata, and i tried installing it on NexStar 3, it didnt said anything about supporting Vista too.. so any help would be great Thanks!