Reading SATA drive from Vista laptop in XP

My friend gave me a laptop drive from a Vista-based drive to get the data off of for her (the laptop quit working).

I have a USB SATA adaptor for things like this.

Anyway... the drive was recognized as a "mass storage device ", then as a "hard drive ". Yet no drive shows in Explorer or even Disk Manager. The device shows as a "hard drive" in Device Manager.

I just don't SEE it. Not even any partitions.

I tried it on another laptop and the exact same symptoms occurred.

Is there something different about the way Vista creates partitions such that even the partitions cannot be seen by XP? If so, what apps are available (if any) to recover data from this drive?

 

The drive is not known to be either, with certainty, in "good working condition" or "dying ". The laptop had something dropped on it so there is a possibility of a bad drive from the impact.

HOWEVER -

This drive doesn't act at all like a bad drive. It spins up without problems and makes no clicking, grinding or any of the other classical dying drive sounds.

Additionally, it's promptly correctly identified as a USB mass storage device and as a disk drive with its proper name. In my experience with dying drives, if they are recognized to this level, they usually will at least be recognized by Disk Manager.

It's as though there's a missing component somehow. Either a driver (but connected to USB I don't know what) or something is just not recognized.

It could, indeed, be a dying drive but it's not giving any of the classic dying drive symptoms!

By the way - the drive is a Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00.

 

was that drive the C drive originally

 

No, the drive does not appear in Disk Manager at all. That was one of the first things I made note of. It is listed as a disk drive in Device Manager, but Disk Manager makes no mention of it at all.

Is there something I don't know about CHKDSK? I thought I could only use that on drives which were already assigned drive letters? Can I actually use it on a physical drive which is not otherwise identified with a letter?

 

Thanks for the replies.

PeteC - You mention SATA drivers. What drivers would I need, for a USB - SATA adaptor cable? That would be important, if drivers could help, but since I've mentioned trying this drive and adaptor on different computers, the exact specifics become less critical. Anyway, I've tried it on Windows XP w/SP3 systems and even a Windows 2000 system. I tried using a powered hub and an Adaptec 3121 card in the docking station as well as connecting straight to the laptop's USB port. All yielded the same results.

PeteC, it's also important to note that I've been using a second SATA drive as a backup drive on the same computer, whcih is in a SATA-USB drive enclosure. So a similar hookup, connected by USB, also. That one works fine. So it's not as though I'm having problems seeing SATA drives across USB adaptors.

Steve R Jones - I tried it on another computer, yes, first thing. Yes, the adaptor is similar in configuration to the one you showed on that link. I've used that adaptor successfully with IDE drives without a problem. Now, with the SATA, I can't get it to work.

I'm just wondering if there's some known problem when a drive appears as a device, but not otherwise recorgnized.

 

But on an external USB adaptor, it shouldn't matter whether the system is natively equipped for SATA, should it? The USB adaptor should technically make it work on any USB-capable computer, correct? Anyway, as I mentioned, I have a similar setup with another SATA drive in a USB enclosure and it works just fine, like any other USB drive.

Also, I would think if it were a problem with interface, I shouldn't see the drive as a device at all, should I?

Speaking about Device Manager, I assume... it says "this device is working properly ".

This is why I am flummoxed. I have never had a drive be recognized as a device in Device Manager and then NOT appear AT ALL in Disk Manager. I've seen plenty of drives which were never recognized at all; or drives which were recognized but couldn't be read; but never one recognized, was sounding healthy, but would not be recognized as an actual "drive ".

 

Heh. Well, from a software-standpoint, perhaps. Of course their definition of "working properly" merely means that the drivers are loaded and there were no hardware conflicts.

Yes. I suspected that. I just wanted to go through all possible efforts to see if any data could be recovered for my friend. The drive itself is of little consequence but I wanted to see if any data could be recovered. I didn't wish to give up if there was any possiblity that it was just some knowledge I lacked to access it.

Anyway, there's one more piece of info. I tried Ontrack's Easy Recovery on it and tried the Disk Diagnostics on it. It saw the physical drive - but gave me "I/O Error" on every sector it tried. Which is even more evidence that something is truly wrong with the drive and not the setup.

I imagine there's still a possibility there's a problem with the SATA cable but that's becoming less likely.


Thanks for the ideas.

 

Nobody mentioned the chance that the USB -> SATA device could be damaged in some way. Have you perhapes tried using ANOTHER SATA hdd on the device after this one? Or as someone did mention the chance of a sata or even a USB cable being bad could have occurred.

And ftr a comp with IDE channls only, can still use sata HDD as long as its connected with a USB -> SATA device (ex. external disc encloser).