Notebook hdd

I have a laptop hard drive that is recognized in device manager and "ready" but will not show in windows explorer or disk management, even after re-boot. The drive is connected through USB adapter. Other drives show and work. Jumper is set as cable select. It shows in task bar and can be safely removed--no drive letter. What am I missing?

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I changed the jumper and the drive is found in device manager but not disk management. When I populate the drive in device manager, it shows "not readable ". I've also re-arranged my own drive letters and rebooted hoping the drive would be recognized. No luck, still no drive letter. Do you think it is dead?

I was going to run a data recovery application on this drive but, if the drive is not found in disk management or windows explorer, do you think the recovery application will find it? (can't hurt to try at this point)

Are there other tools available? I'm not understanding why the o/s sees the drive in some places and not in others.

 

Can you supply more information? It seems that it might be a newly purchased USB external drive. Can you tell us the make and model (is it listed in Device Manager)?

Is there a CD that came with the drive. Look on the CD (or go to the drive manufacturer's website) and look for setup instructions. A quick guess, the drive is not partitioned and formatted.

Check for testing/setup utilities on the CD or at the manufacturer's website.

Matt
Edit: I am not completely certain, but if it happens to be already formatted as NTFS, I think it will need to be reformatted as FAT32, I have a feeling you won't be able to use NTFS on an external drive.

 

Having read through the "reviews" at Newegg regarding USB adaptors for hard drives I did encounter some where the owner could not get a certain hard drive to work with a certain USB adaptor. Did this combo ever work for you or has it never worked for you?

 

I have used this method several times before with success, including saving precious data. Other hard drives are visible and can be utilized as an external drive, once placed into an external aluminum case and connected, through USB. This particular drive is seen only in device manager, stating "this device is working properly. "--(yet another Microsoft myth.)

TonyT-- "Knoppix cd "? Never heard of this. Application?

Make and model does not really matter since I've been successful several times before using this method before. Whether the drive is IBM or Maxtor or WDC, there are tools available to connect the drive as slave to save data.

Chiles4--yes, this method worked for me several times before, including saving data. I've also used this method to change the Administrator's password, replace hdd into pc and boot--saving the pc from being reformatted and reinstalled, due to lost passwords.

I believe the drive may be dead. What application is "tops" for recovering data? I've tried 6 different "trial" versions and am not pleased with any so far.

 

Knoppix

You burn it to a cd and boot from the cd. Once it's booted, you'll be running a Linux OS right off the CD. It runs pretty much like windows and has a file manager much like windows explorer. You could use it to see if you can see the files on the drive.

If you try this, you can't just burn the downloaded file to a CD. In your cd burning software, look for something in the menus that says something like burn image file. That's what you need to use. If you just burn the file to a disk in the normal fashion, it won't boot from it. If you have questions, ask.

That said, you might want to explore the possibility that it may be a USB adapter problem of some type. Do you know anybody that has one that you could use just to see if it works properly?

 

Foot in Mouth Time?

I don't use 3.5" external drives with jumpers so I'll pose this as a question instead of a solution. Shouldn't you jumper that as a single master or cable select if you are using it as a USB external? Jumpering it as a slave doesn't make any sense to me. What happens if you jumper it differently and are you sure you have jumpered as "slave" in the past?

I do use 2.5" externals (44 pin laptop drives that are not jumpered) which require no power other than the USB connector itself and I do a lot with removable bays (where I always jumper 3.5" drives as CS).

 

Thanks guys. Couple of good suggestions and questions. Yes I have tried all the possible jumper settings. and the drive does not matter if it is 2.5 or 3.5 cuz it's the connections that count. You are correct, the power comes from the USB device and therefore does not need a power cable.

Getting off track a bit but just wanted to give that tip. Many USB devices share the power unless it's a older device that requires an additional power cable......ironically.....USB power cable--which takes another USB port. Anyways, the drive was found in the device manager with CS and Slave jumpers--not master.

Luckily I have extra resources to utilize (extra pc's) and will try the application that Zander suggests. Leaving for the holiday now, but will try on Tuesday and post back my results......

Thanks all!!!
Happy New Year!!!!!

 

I look forward to discussing this when you come back. I beg to differ.

 

Suzette

Do you have the old Tweakui or newer TweakXP installed?

If so you can uncheck the availabe visable drives.

In the old Tweakui it will be Under My Computer all drives from a to z if a letter is unchecked it will be there but not visable to Explore/my Computer.

But is usually visable in Disk management.

If you have the newer Tweak XP it has basicly the same entry.

One other thing you might try.

Some of these USB deveice drivers do not detect network mapped drives or in some cases CD/DVD drives and try to occupy the same slot.

To test this disconnect any mapped network drives and change the drive letter of your cd drives via disk management to a higher letter. I usually set mine out to h: as I have c d e and a mapped net work drive.

Mike

 

Suzette

Two other thoughts. You might want to try FDISK /MBR on that drive using win9x boot disk in another computer with no other drives attached. This will require a 40 to 44 pin adapter for use with a normal IDE header and 4 pin molex. You can also try removing the USB filters as noted here.

 

Many replies. I've very grateful for all the help and suggestions. Happy New Year!

Rockster2U-I will try this suggestion. Did not think of it. Thanks. As for my statement; "the drive does not matter if it is 2.5 or 3.5 cuz it's the connections that count ", adapters are one of many wonderful tools and I've been successful with them before. Just not this time.

mflynn-Do not have this application installed on any pc's. I've worked with it in the beginning and found that it "took over" the pc's unfortunately and have moved to other tools. Maybe the application has improved and will give it another try.

Thanks guys. I will post back with my results.

 

No Suzette

Both of these only set registry values that you chose and I have never heard of them hogging a system.

But if they are used to set values in the registry as I mentioned by unchecking the availaible visible drives uninstalling will not revert the setting.

There are several utilities and security enhancement packages that can be used to do the same (hide Drive letters) including windows own GPEdit. Look at any of these if you have any.

You mentioned earlier that you had

.

Did you move the CD as I suggested?

Do you have any secondary partitions if so move them temporairly.

And do you have any built in memory drives like a camera? If so try moving them also.

They can always be put back. But I have seen this before with the exception that the drive usually shows up in Disk management without a drive letter.

Mike