2.5" IDE to USB Recovery Issues!

[djdan]

Hi all. I'm in real trouble. Laptop 2.5" IDE HDD is out of my laptop and needs recovering! I got a USB adapter. Plug it in, green light is on and the HDD is running as I can hear/feel it.

 

However it does not appear on 'My Computer' (Vista 64-bit)

It does however appear in Device Manager under USB Mass Storage Device.

 

I tried a SATA HDD and it did the same.

 

The CD that came with the package are drivers for Windows 98 only. I can't install the software for some reason but I researched the software and the things it says it does don't seem to be needed as its only backup etc.

 

Do I need a type of software to enable this to come up in My Computer or something?

I really don't know :/

[laserblazer]

First thing I would try is disabling it in Device Manager and then enabling it again.

[synaesthesia]

What sort of adapter is it? Is it a powered one? (separate mains adapter)

If not, and it's USB powered, your drive might be wanting to draw more power than the USB port can handle. You can solve that by using a double headed USB cable.

 

Otherwise is there anything in storage management?

[srochford]

With the IDE drive, are you sure you had it connected the right way round? I don't think you can get it wrong because it won't power up if you don't but does no harm to check :-)

 

If it does appear in the disk management console but not in explorer then it may be that you just need to run chkdsk - I had a disc do exactly this last week.

[Michael]

If you navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management

 

The disk should be listed here. Is the drive active and does it have an active partition?

[dtakias]

Since it's 2.5" and only IDE I doubt it will need more power that what is supplied by the USB port. Some chipsets have low powered USB ports so it's worth attaching it to another system or use an enclosure with external power as suggested.

 

If still nothing appears under disk management the disk has probably had it...

 

Also maybe it's worth booting off a knopix cd and attach the disk there and see if it's listed under devices

[synaesthesia]

Lots of off-the-shelf drives come with double ended cables, as many higher capacity and high speed 2.5" drives do require more current than USB can provide.

[Michael]

As far as I am aware 2.5" IDE drives should work fine off USB 2.0 ports for data and power. SATA 2.5" drives are better, as it uses the same power and data cabling as its bigger SATA 3.5" brother.

[ricki]

If you navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management

 

The disk should be listed here. Is the drive active and does it have an active partition?

 

I agree this is the best place to start

 

Richard

[mac_shinobi]

If you navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management

 

The disk should be listed here. Is the drive active and does it have an active partition?

 

I would do that as well as power it down and try a different usb port on the back of the computer as the usb ports on the front tend to play up. I normally use the usb ports directly beneath the onboard NIC.

 

I would try and get a working hard drive connected via your recovery usb kit and get it working and once you are sure thats fine then go from there with ref to the one you are trying to recover.

[difinity]

I've had problems with drives being recognised when using a USB adapter. Might just have been a poor one, but i always use a 3.5 to 2.5 IDE adapter.

[mac_shinobi]

I've had problems with drives being recognised when using a USB adapter. Might just have been a poor one, but i always use a 3.5 to 2.5 IDE adapter.

 

I've got one here and it works fine as used ide and sata drives on it, it sometimes takes a few mins for the drives to spin up and mount etc but other then that has been fine as have recovered data using it a few times.

 

I've now had to replace the power cable as the fuse went on the original one that came with it which was a sealed unit so chopped the plug off and kept the cable as can get another non sealed one later on.

[chazzy2501]

Control Panel - Administrative tools - Computer Management - Disk Management, go here and see if windows has assigned it a drive letter. I seen my external drives given the same letter as a mapped drive which makes it inaccessible until you change it's letter assignment.

[mac_shinobi]

Control Panel - Administrative tools - Computer Management - Disk Management, go here and see if windows has assigned it a drive letter. I seen my external drives given the same letter as a mapped drive which makes it inaccessible until you change it's letter assignment.

 

can you not use usbdlm to exclude drive letters that are assigned via the inf file

 

USB drive letter manager - USBDLM

 

Excluded drive letters You can prevent Windows mounting to certain letters by putting them into section ExcludedLetters. This is especially useful for letters of network shares which Windows may assign to USB drives while booting. Do not configure other letters than network, subst and TrueCrypt drives here!

[ExcludedLetters]

Letter1=F

Letter2=

Letter3=

[ozzy]

Not to put a downer on it for you but I had the same problem a little while back the IDE to usb caddy itwould not show any drives in my computer disk management ect and it turned out that it was a faulty caddy:mad:

[difinity]

I have a 2.5" drive i am recovering from at the moment. My windows PC refuses to boot with it attached with an adapter, however booting a laptop with an ubuntu cd, the hard drive mounts and i can recover most of the files.