ME-940 usb enclosure not reconized

Better to buy a new hard drive. IDE drives nowadays are mostly found on surviving old pc's. They are slow and usually of low capacity. I feel that any money spent would be better directed at replacing the hard drive.

You want to remove the hard disk from old computer, connect it to the enclosure, and connect it externally to the new computer, right?
Now you have a problem connecting hard disk to the enclosure.
Usually there are no SATA/IDE enclosures. They are either IDE or SATA.
If the data connector in the hard disk (HDD) is rectangular with around 40 pins inside, it is an IDE HDD. Else if it has L shaped horizontal connector, it is a SATA HDD.
I suggest you to take the hard disk to the store and ask for a matching enclosure. If you bought the wrong one, they might replace it with the correct one.
If you feel you want to do it yourself, let us know. However an IDE HDD cannot be connected to a SATA enclosure and vise versa.
I sincerely hope you will get to copy the required files to your new computer. However before copying, it is better to install a reliable virus guard.

This is my suggestion for you to possibly recover the back up file in your external hard disk.

Remove the enclosure cover of the external hard disk. Detach the hard disk from the ide connection.
Change the jumper setting of the hard disk to slave. See the sticker in the hard disk to see how to set up the jumper to slave. Connect the hard disk to the ide cable inside your pc. If your computer is equipped with sata cable, just find some ide cable and connect it the the ide slot in your motherboard.

Restart your system and you will find your hard disk as drive (d:) in your system. If this was successful then problem can be cause by loose terminal solder in the usb/ide connector of the enclosure, or possible voltage drop of the power supply of the enclosure. USB driver issue or problem with the usb slot in your computer can also cause this issue.

smc4

There is a couple of things that could be going on. The first thing to check is that the drive did not get bumped off its drive letter by another device. If that is the case you just the to assign it a new one. The link below will help you do this.

http://www.fixya.com/support/r4183994-change_drive_letter_in_windows_xp

The other issue is the drive may have gotten disconnected improperly. I had the same problem with one of my drive on my XP system as well. It partly has something to do with the USB controller to my understanding. Alot of times if you plug it into another computer it will detect it and ask to run a scan to repair the drive. After this you should be able to access the drive on your XP system again. Note I have the best resolutes when I plugged the drive into my Vista system. So I would recommend trying to plug it into a Windows Vista or 7 computer to attempt the repair.

Let me know if you have any more problems or questions.

Issken

The full bytec adaptor comes with a power supply.

There are unscrupulous dealers out there that sell the kits in separate parts to bump up profits.

http://www.directron.com/bt300.html

tells you that it comes with a PSU as does

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?CurImage=12-156-102-S01&ISList=12-156-102-S01%2c12-156-102-S02%2c12-156-102-S03%2c12-156-102-S04%2c12-156-102-S05&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16812156102&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=BYTECC%20BT-300%20USB%202.0%20to%20IDE%2fSATA%20Adapter%20-%20Retail

It is quite easy, do not worry.
You only need to bought and USB enclosure, here is a link to many products on ebay
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=p0.m37.l1313&satitle=hard+drive+enclosure+usb&category0=

then you have to connect your hard drive inside the enclosure and the enclosure to your computer using the usb cable and that's it.
Just be carefull about the enclosure, I guess it is a Hard drive from a desktop, is in it? because some enclosure are for laptop's hard drive.
Also you need to know if your hard drive is SATA or IDE, IDE is the normal gray bus cable with fourty some pins, and the SATA it is a really small cable (I do not use technicims to not confuse you even more).

Also, there are some adapters from IDE/SATA to USB that you can buy in your local computer store (do not go to bestbuy, compusa, ... they only sell external hd), or also get it from ebay.
The only diference between the enclosure and the adapter is that the enclosure looks better :D, and the adapter is just a bunch of cables.

My Setup:
Bytecc Model ME-535 hard drive enclosure with Seagate 80GB SATA drive (ST380815AS) hard drive.

My Problem:
I plugged in but didn't see anything in My Computer.

My Solution:
After Windows finds your device -> Start -> Run -> compmgmt.msc -> OK -> click on Disk Management -> a pop up will ask if you want to initialize the disk, select MBR -> OK -> your disk should show up as unallocated -> right click on that disk -> New Simple Volume -> Next -> next -> Assign drive letter: E -> Next -> Format this volume NTFS with quick format -> Next -> Finish -> It takes a minute or two to finish formatting -> Now shows up in disk management as "Disk1: New Volume (E:) -> My Computer -> see E drive now and it is working!

This behavior occurs if you map a network drive to the first available drive letter after the drive letters for the local volumes and CD-ROM drives. When you install a new device or volume, Mount Manager, which assigns drive letters to volumes, does not recognize the mapped network drive and assigns the next available drive letter to the new device or volume. This causes a collision with the existing mapped network drive. To prevent this issue from occurring, when you map a network drive, assign the highest available drive letter to the mapped network drive. To work around this issue if the new volume appears in Disk Management, specify a different drive letter for the new device or volume. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage. 2. Under Computer Management (Local), click Disk Management. 3. In the list of drives in the right pane, right-click the new drive and then click Change Drive Letter and Path(s). 4. Click Change, and in the drop-down box, select a drive letter for the new drive that is not assigned to a mapped network drive. 5. Click OK, and then click OK again.

Perhaps the gentleman at the store did not connect the power from the case to the drive itself.