How to connect external drive to hi-speed hub?

[iaink]

Every time I connect my 7200rpm external drive the computer tells me that the device can run at hi speed and that I should disconnect it fromt he USB drive it is attached to and connect it to one the drive shown - PCI Enhanced Host Controller - which has 6 unused hubs. Can anyone advise on how to do this, as my external drive is running very slow at the moment. My computer is 3 years old and came with 4 USB 2 sockets. Thanks in advance.

[IcemanND]

Need the specs on you machines to really help, but have you tried plugging your drive into all of your externally available USB ports? And do you get the same error with all of them?

[iaink]

Thanks for the reply. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a novice on computer stuff. I've tried each of my 4 USB2 ports and the message comes up every time. My laptop hard drive is an IDE, 4200rpm Matsus***a and I have a 2.4 Ghz Celeron D Prescott Core processor with 533Mhz FSB and 512 RAM. If you let me know what sort of info would be helpful to you, I'll get it for you. Cheers.

Edited September 12, 2007 by iaink

[IcemanND]

What motherboard is in the machine? or is a brand name like Dell, HP, etc.

Is SP2 installed? Have the chipset/usb drivers been installed?

[iaink]

Hi there,

The machine is a Tiny Powerlite 320D laptop with XP SP2. Motherboard "to be filled by OEM".

Drivers: I have SiS PCI to USB Open Host Controllers x 2 and PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller x 1 & 3 USB Root Hubs.

Bios 080010. IDE/Atapi port driver. 5.1.2600.2180(xpsp_sp2_rtm040803-2158.

Hope this helps.

[GrofLuigi]

From what I've seen (and this is no rule of thumb), different chipset manufacturers assign USB ports differently. Example: on an nForce board, whatever port I plug a USB device to, it becomes Enhanced (USB2, that's what you're looking for). Intel (I think) reshuffles them also all the time; on a SIS laptop I have (similar to yours, "to be filled by OEM" ) they are fixed. You need to find out what port it is. Connect ONLY ONE Usb device, preferably a 2.0 one, go to device manager and select from the menu "View -> Devices by connection". Now find what your device is connected to. As I said, if it's "enhanced USB host controller" or similar, then you're all set. If not, keep plugging the device to different ports until you see it. You may need to press F5 or close and reopen device manager to see the changes. Again, you are looking for "Enhanced" = USB2.0. Unfortunately, i've also seen motherboards with more hubs than connectors - in that case, start looking for jumpers.

GL