I got this USB hard drive caddy a while back and tried to hook it up but for some reason it failed to work.

This is the gear in question

Thought I give it another crack but I'm having the same problem (funny that).

What happens is this:
I plug in the USB cable and get an icon in the toolbar saying "Ok to remove hardware".
However I can't access the external hdd as it doesn't appear anywhere in my list of hdd's etc. (in My Computer). I tried detecting new hardware and even tried to install a new driver for the USB Mass Storage Device, but I get a message the best driver is already installed.

The device shows up as a USB Mass storage device in device manager and everything says "device is working properly".

I am running Windows XP and have one 40G IDE drive (C:) and two SATA drives, one 160G (E:) and one 250G (G:). I only have one optical drive (DVD burner, (F:)) but I seem to have a phantom CD drive as well (D:) (been there for ages).

Also, when I press the power button on the caddy and the USB device icon appears, everything ceases to work. As in, I double click Firefox or go to Start menu etc and the computer acts as if it ignores the function. Then when I power down the caddy, all the apps start working, so it is as if the caddy is slowing the computer down to a standstill.

Any help would be appreciated.

but I seem to have a phantom CD drive as well (D:) (been there for ages).

Are you running Daemon tools or any ISO reading program? That would explain the phantom drive.

Yeah I am running Power ISO. However the "phantom" drive was on there long before I started using it.
PI is only assigned to one drive which is being used for something else atm.

Anyway unless having the CD drive is causing the caddy not to work, I don't mind leaving it for the time being.
Thanks for the suggestion though.

If I have to many drives plugged in they simply cease to work.

I have 2 HDD
1 CD burner
1 DVD
and 1 ISO(virtual) drive.

If I add another virtual drive, or plug in a USB, another of my drives will simply stop working. :/

It may be that your hdd is conflicting with another drive. Make sure that the new drive isn't linked to one of your other drives (e.g. check to make sure that it's not trying to a D: when you already have one).

right click My Computer, go to Manage, then Disk Management

does the drive show up in the bottom section there? if so, give it a drive letter and you should be able to see it in My Computer

Tried accessing it through network neighborhood?

My friends USB drive caddy is also a network drive and you have to install some whackass software just to get to it I think (lol asus).

Ok had a quick try this morning and as soon as I turn on caddy computer slows down so much that disk management just hangs.

maybe the hdd in the caddy is rooted?

sounds like the hdd's partition info is corrupt... recover the data & reformat imo.

Have you tried removing the HD from the caddy and installing it to your pc?

No Tanaka that's probably the next step I'd reckon.
Will give it a crack over the weekend.

Thanks for the suggestions.