usb 2 caddy with 300gb internal hdd's

[ffrr]

I have 4 300gb internal drives I need to clear down and format but they aren't being recognised in my usb 2.0 external caddy ;/

I checked around and can't find anything about this, which is strange because I remember reading something about drives being over a certain capacity not working in via usb 2, but that was a few years ago now. All I seem to find are links to maxtor 300 gb external drives.

Apart from removing a drive from my working comp, which is going to be grief at the moment I can't think of any other way to get these recognised and I really need to get this done asap ;/

I checked for the latest drivers but everything I have tried to install says I have the most up to date drives installed already.

Any suggestions?

[CLATChY]

What make are the hhd caddies?

what make are the hhds?

[ffrr]

The caddy has no name branding on it anywhere, it cost me £50 at the time I bought it which was about 4 years ago now, and the the drives are all maxtor diamondmax 10's 300gb.

I have bitten the bullet and removed a drive from the machine I'm using and started clearing down one of these... lol very boring task indeed but it has to be done ;/

would be nice to use them on via usb but its no go currently, also when I plug one into the caddy windows sees the drive has been plugged in but immediately asks to format it and nothing else.

edit*

I have built my new system now and still have the same problem, and now also one of my older 80gb drives is not recognised on the caddy when it was working fine on my old system with the same method. I think this has to be a driver/windows compatability problem as the drives all work fine on ide.