External Drive not working!

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Flippit

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In an attempt to get data off the hard drive of a faulty laptop, I bought a 2.5" USB enclosure and connected the hard drive to it. I plugged it into my laptop (running Vista), and it says "Found New Hardware", and finds a USB Mass Storage Device, which shows up in the device manager, but the drive does not show up in "(My) Computer"!

What steps can I take to get it to show up?
 
First, make sure you have up to date antivirus in case a virus is causing the hassle. Next right click My computer and "Manange"
Then go to storage-disk management
Find the drive / partition(s) in the bottom right window and see if you can assign a drive letter.
 
groundnut said:
First, make sure you have up to date antivirus in case a virus is causing the hassle. Next right click My computer and "Manange"
Then go to storage-disk management
Find the drive / partition(s) in the bottom right window and see if you can assign a drive letter.
Click to expand...

The drive is marked as "29.94 GB Unallocated". I can look at its Properties, but the only other option is "New Simple Volume..." which sounds a lot like formatting?!?!

Screenshot
 
Vista doesn't recognise Fat32 as far as I know. Plug it into a machine running XP.

Failing that you can always download GetDataBack for Fat and see if you can get info off the drive like that.
 
Flippit said:
In an attempt to get data off the hard drive of a faulty laptop,
Click to expand...

it appears, mr watson, you have found the source of the problem.


The drive is marked as "29.94 GB Unallocated". I can look at its Properties, but the only other option is "New Simple Volume..." which sounds a lot like formatting?!?!
Click to expand...

my guess is that the hdd is shagged.

or you have managed to put a drive in a usb caddy in a very remarkable manner.

Vista doesn't recognise Fat32 as far as I know. Plug it into a machine running XP.
Click to expand...

sssshhh...people will realise you are guessing
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...0433-4ba1-a2f4-9338915fdb4b1033.mspx?mfr=true
"Windows Vista provides support for Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me file systems, including FAT16 and FAT32 file systems"
 
You might have success with running a checkdisk on the drive as your PC starts up. Not a Vista fundi so cant help you with the technicalities.
 
Renamed20070410 said:
it appears, mr watson, you have found the source of the problem.

my guess is that the hdd is shagged.
Click to expand...

Eish!


Renamed20070410 said:
or you have managed to put a drive in a usb caddy in a very remarkable manner.
Click to expand...

Don't think so - pins are lined up with connector properly... what "remarkable manner" would cause trouble?

Renamed20070410 said:
sssshhh...people will realise you are guessing
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...0433-4ba1-a2f4-9338915fdb4b1033.mspx?mfr=true
"Windows Vista provides support for Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me file systems, including FAT16 and FAT32 file systems"
Click to expand...

Ja, I put it in an XP machine, with exactly the same results! Thought it would be a bit strange for Vista not to support FAT32! I think the drive is NTFS, anyway, since it comes out of a laptop running XP.
 
Maybe check the drive manufacturer's website. They often have tools that can help with broken drives.
 
///MoH said:
It should be set on master

take a look here...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421
Click to expand...

Referring to taking ownership of files? If I could see the files, I'd be sorted!

feo said:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/NST-250U2.htm

Don't format it obviously, you'll lose the data.
Click to expand...

I have done all of those steps, up to before creating a new partition (to avoid formatting). No good :(

wizzard said:
Maybe check the drive manufacturer's website. They often have tools that can help with broken drives.
Click to expand...

The drive is a Seagate, and the only tool I can find costs $129.99!

groundnut said:
I have a utility to recover lost data - pm me if you want
Click to expand...

PM sent
 
Plug it into a Linux machine. Might have more luck there or at least get a better idea of the problem (/var/log/messages or dmesg).
 
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