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For the first one: Does the cord have 2 usb plugs that go into the pc? All my externals that I have had have had a total of 3 connectors on the cord. Think of it this way one for data and one for power... You might not be getting enough power to the drive for windows to use it fully... As for the second drive: It might just be dead... No, the cords don't have 2 pc-side plugs. They are just like the one that came with the HDD, but if I find one like what you describe I will give it a whirl. Any idea where I could find one? Well it is a standard 3.5" SATA drive but unfortunately it has a PCB soldered directly to the SATA ports. here is where hte mini-usb connector fell off, this is the side of the hard drive: and here is where it is soldered onto the ports:

I have 2 external hard drives that I am having trouble with. The first is a Western Digital Passport portable external hard drive. It is a 2.5" drive with a USB connection, no power supply. I plug it in and the light on the drive comes on but it does not appear in My Computer or Disk Management, and in Safely Remove Hardware it is only labeled as "USB device" I have tried multiple computers (all XP), USB cables, and ports. Is there anything I can do to get the files off it or is it doomed? I don't get any warnings or errors or anything when I plug it in. I hear the noise that occurs when you plug in stuff like thumb drives and also when you remove them. It doesn't show up in disk management and I haven't changed anything on the computers that I'm using. The second is a Seagate that was damaged in shipping. It is out of warranty so I cracked it open. From what I can tell just looking at it, it should be in working order except that the mini-USB connector has simply popped off. I can't just plug the SATA directly to my motherboard because of how the PCB is connected. So what I'm wondering is how I should go about getting the data off of it? If I soldered the mini-USB connector back on it would work fine, correct? I don't know how to solder and I only have a handful of friends who can, and they aren't very good at it. It's a pretty small connector, I wouldn't be comfortable doing it myself even if I bought a soldering iron and learned how. Can I take it somewhere that will do it for me? Thanks in advance.

oops I guess I left out the time zone huh now that is completed for me but it still asks me to "take a minute and set up windows XP" where it asks about the firewall settings and other stuff.

yes, here it is

I'm having trouble getting my customized installation to be unattended, and during installation asks me about settings that I have specified in nLite. this is what it looks like when I install from .iso in VirtualBox. why does it do this or how can I fix it? this is my .ini file copy and pasted