2.5 laptop hard drive enclousre

[knicks]

in brief i have everything set up and the usb drivers are automaticall installed by windows and so on. but how do u actually access the hrd drive
now mind u i am the starter of the thrwad about my hard drive possibly being dead ithis will allow me to tell if it is or if it was my laptop
thanks in advance
regards

[classicsoftware]

The drive should show up in my computer.......

[knicks]

hmmm it doesnt... just my c drive my cd/dvd burner and then all 4 other mini drives for like mem cards and such. i guess my hard drive really is dead

hmm it shows up in device manager witht the toshiba and model name and everything

please help if possible

[Paul Komski]

It wont show up in "My Computer" unless the drive was initialised when purchased; not all are.

To initialise (partition and format) it go to Disk Manager (enter diskmgmt.msc in the run box) and create new partition(s) in its unallocated space (which is what should show if the drive has no partitions). It there are FAT or NTFS partitions with no Drive Letter then you should also be able to assign drive lettes in the same console. An alternative would be to initialise it with BiNG (in my sig) or similar.

[knicks]

I followed your advice Paul but it did not work. You were correct but i guess my harddrive is truly broken. ITs making grinding noises and the light of the enclousre is green and going and everything is plugge in and my computer recongnises it but its not listed in disk manager

if theres any other thing i can do to try to see if my hd will work please reply and help besides sending it away to a company

[Paul Komski]

Bad news to hear about grinding noises. Is the drive under warranty and do you have data on the drive that is important to recover.

[knicks]

i do not think the drive is still under warrenty its from jan 2005 and i never put an extended warrenty so i can check. i believe it might have a month or two left. doubt it tho...
there is some important info but i see your point. is it necessary to send it to a professioanl recovery company-probably not especially for the expense.

i appreciate your help so much tho paul. i wish there was way to somehow boot it for one last time... just to get the data off of it

[mjc]

Most hard drives come with more than a 1 yr warranty...

[Paul Komski]

I have known a bad/failing USB device/cable/connector to cause a "clunking" (though not the more ominous "grinding" noise) of any HDDs put into the enclosure. Those drives were OK when connected via a normal IDE cable but inaccessible when connected via USB. To cut a long story short it turned out that the USB cable was bad. You could obviously also try a new cable but one step better might be to remove the drive from the enclosure and try attaching it directly to an IDE cable with a (very cheap) 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter. Once on an IDE cable (no USB involved) you could also run HDD diagnostics on the drive from a floppy diskette as well as seeing if the drive could then be accessed using the direct IDE connection. I don't know if it is worth a shot but you haven't much to lose.

[knicks]

thank you so much paul. i saw a good one online that i just ordered hope it works
thanks so much
regards

[mjc]

Also, when grabbing the drive diagnostics, most manufacturers have a way of checking the warranty status of the drive...so look for that, too.