text: after installing internal hdd as a external ones by using usb 2.0 to ide cable,i cannot locate the 'j' drive   first off, is the hdd already partitioned and formatted?  if not it won't show up as a drive.  assuming you're using windows xp, go to your control panel -> administrative tools -> computer management -> storage ->disk management.  you can then see if the hdd is already connected and whether or not it has been assigned a drive letter.  if it's unpartitioned and unformatted, you can do all that here.