[Solved] External Enclosure Access Issue

Hello,

I've recently bought an external SATAII to USB2.0 enclosure and was hoping to use my old laptop harddrive as a mobile storage. I've been having issues getting the computer to recognize and assign the drive, and I was hoping you might have an answer. I'm an intermediate user, so feel free to be technical.

Here's more info about my system before I go into detail about my problem:
OS: Win 7 x64 SP1
HDD: WD 5400RPM 250GB SATAII
Enclosure: Vantec NexStar TX SATAII to USB2.0

So far:
1. No issues with HDD. Not a brand new drive. Working fine and pulled recently from the laptop because I've gotten a larger capacity one to replace it. (Note: the hard drive I want to use in the enclosure still has the OS installed - let me know if this is the issue).
2. Plugged in the enclosure to computer using double usb cables. There is enough power to run the drive. LED is lit and steady.
3. Drivers installed successfully and the device is recognized. Shows up in the "Devices and Printers" as USB Mass Storage Device.

And here come the problems:
4. Device is not assigned a drive letter and does not show up in "My Computer"
5. Opened "Computer Management" and went to "Disk Management." Drive is listed as "Disk 1, Unknown, Not Initialized." Main drive remains under "Disk 0"
6. Attempt to initialize the drive to assign letter. Popup says "Cyclic Redundancy Check" for both MBR and GPT options.

I have done steps 4-6 with the device policy under both "Write to Cache Disabled" and "Performance" modes.

This is where I'm stumped. I'm starting to think it is giving me errors because I have not reformatted the drive and it still contains an OS. I prefer not to reformat because there are a few software installations I still actively use and have not been able to reinstall on the replacement hard drive. What are your solutions?

Best answer selected by xskyline_gtr.