External USB Hard drive not recognised.

[hewittinspain]

I bought a 60gb 2.5 usb hard drive and I have used it and stored a few things from my laptop. I have since put it in my desktop PC and I get the usual message bubble in the bottom right hand corner of the screen saying it has recognised a Toshiba hard drive but when I go into My Computer the drive is not there. I put the hard drive back in my laptop and now that is not recognising it. I have tried to uninstall it and update the driver too but it doesnt help. I have tried to get an official driver from websites and it doesnt help.

Why isnt the drive coming up in My Computer.?

Ps the drive is present in device manager. I cant find the drive either in Manage

[123456]

Is it formatted/partitioned?

[hewittinspain]

Cant remember but I have used it and previously stored stuff on there. When I now try to format it,it says there is no drive. Like I say I tried to assign a letter for it but it isnt recognised in MANAGE. I can find the drive in device manager and when I try to roll back driver,uninstall or update driver I can the white square (freezes) until i disconnect from the usb port.

[Sylvander]

1. See if a [3rd party?] partitioning program can see it, and if it can see any partitions.
I would use GParted that is natively included in [the FREE] Puppy Linux [you could alternatively use a free-standing version].
"BootIT New Generation" is also good [not FREE].
What partition file system was originally used?
You can't format [with a partition file system] if no partitions are seen, and then it also wouldn't be seen by My Computer or Windows File Explorer.

If there's anything valuable on the drive that you don't want to lose:
2. If the partition[s] is/are corrupted you might be able to recover it/them, perhaps by using something like [B]TestDisk.
I have that on a Floppy, and also installed in Puppy Linux.
Used it to recover a corrupted and non-bootable Windows Partition [the Partition Boot Sector].
SUPERB!

3. Good idea to image the drive/partition before attempting any work on it.
"Puppy Universal dd" [Pudd] can do that from within Puppy.

If there's nothing on the drive you can't afford to lose:
4. Repartition the drive, then format those partitions with the file system of your choice [FAT32 is good].
GParted is good for doing that job.

[hewittinspain]

Hi I used TESTDISK and a one point I got my files back for a second but since I cant find them. The hard drive shows up in TESKDISK but ive no ide how to particion and what figures to put in (cylinder/head etc). It also says that the drive is unable to read/write. The drive is a 60gb usb external.

Any ideas what I should be doing in TESTDISK?

[mjc]

it may be time to pop the drive from the housing and try it directly connected...

[Paul Komski]

A number of things are unclear.

I bought a 60gb 2.5 usb hard drive and I have used it and stored a few things from my laptop.As an internal or external drive??



I have since put it in my desktop PC and I get the usual message bubble in the bottom right hand corner of the screen saying it has recognised a Toshiba hard drive but when I go into My Computer the drive is not there.

Was the drive in an enclosure or attached via a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE converter.

Indeed is the drive IDE or SATA?


Is it formatted/partitioned?It must have been at some stage to allow data to be saved to it.

"BootIT New Generation" [BiNG] is also good [not FREE].

The download is a functional free trial. So it is somewhat of a semantic point of stressing that it is not FREE (sic). Bing can undelete deleted partitions in the same fashion that TestDisk can and has no problems accessing via IDE/SATA/RAID/USB/Firewire.

If BiNG cannot sort things out for you then I agree with mjc that it may be time to try it in an enclosure (if that is not what is being used) or with a 2.5 to 3.5 converter (if that is not what is being used).

If the drive is accessible but not any partitions and they cannot be reclaimed with TestDisk or BiNG then GetDataBack may be the answer to reclaim any missing data.

[Paul Komski]

Sorry I missed the actual title of the thread. If TestDisk or BiNG cannot undelete any missing partitions then I would suggest using different hardware to access the drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB-DSC5-3-5-Inch-Converter-Adapter/dp/B000HJ99DI

http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-2-5-inch-3-5-inch-Drive-Adapter/dp/B00006B8C2

The second link allows you to attach a 2.5" IDE drive inside a desktop with an IDE slot. If the drive is a SATA it can be directly attached inside a desktop with a SATA slot our use the device in the first link.

[Sylvander]

Probably best to take the advice of Paul and MJC, since they know more than I do.
However...
For your information:

1. If you ran Testdisk from a DOS bootable floppy, it would be unable to read/write the external USB HDD.
It would be necessary to install it to a Puppy Linux [using a PET file], and run it there.
[The Puppy would provide the means (for the TestDisk program] to access/read/write the USB HDD]
And hey...
It's not unknown for Puppy to be able to see/access/copy/recover what Windows cannot.

2.
(a) See "Using TestDisk" near the bottom of this Wikipedia webpage (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk).

(b) The "TestDisk step-by-step" link there leads to this web page (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step).
In my case it was a deeper search as is explained here (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step#A_partition_is_still_missing :_Deeper_Search) that displayed the missing partition in a list, and recovering that fixed my problem.
Your problem and its solution may be different however.

[Sylvander]

1. Screenshot 1 shows TestDisk [run within BoxPup] displaying the 2 HDD's; the upper is the internal IDE and the lower is the external USB.
I chose the lower USB and highlighted "Proceed" and hit the [Enter] key.

2. I choose/highlight the "Intel" partition type, and hit [Enter].

3. I choose "Analyse" and hit [Enter].

4. The partition arrangement is displayed.
I highlight "Quick Search" and hit [Enter].
Hit "N" to say no partition was created under Vista.

5. It displays the 2 existing partitions, and also a Linux partition I made a few days back, and then eliminated yesterday using GParted.
I highlight the Linux partition and hit [Enter].

6. It displays once more the 2 FAT32 partitions and also the Linux partition...
And also offers the opportunity to:
(a) WRITE
If I hit enter with WRITE highlighted, it will restore the displayed arrangement.
(b) QUIT
It will jump back to the previous step.
(c) DEEPER SEARCH
I'll choose this and see what it gives.

7. It displays 3 previous pairs of FAT32 partitions.
Then consolidates those as 3-FAT32, 1-NTFS, 1-Linux.
Don't want to recover any of the partition arrangements found, so I don't want to "Write" any of those, so...

8. I choose the least dangerous and choose the only option = [Enter].
At the window that appears I choose "Quit"->[Enter].
Then again choose "Quit"->[Enter].
Then again choose "Quit"->[Enter].
The program closes.

[Paul Komski]

BiNG will usually see USB drives. If it does but there are no partitions visible then in order to rebuild the partition tables all you have to do is to search for and then undelete the missing partitions. It's not complicated at all. If data recovery is paramount then use GetDataBack early rather than too late on since it is quite possible that the hard drive has bad sectors on it in critical areas.

From the BiNG pdf file:

Undelete a partition or volume
1 On the desktop, click Partition Work.
2 In the Partitions list, select the free-space entry that you want to undelete, and then click
Undelete under Actions.
3 In the Undelete dialog box that appears, click OK to recover missing FAT, HPFS, NTFS,
Ext2fs, ReiserFS, and Extended partitions or volumes.
Note
• If the partition or volume recovered is not correct, select it in the Partition list, click Delete,
select the Clear Boot Sector check box, click OK, and then repeat steps 2 and 3.

[hewittinspain]

This is the drive I have
http://www.itpartsdepot.com/products/TOSHIBA/NEW/MK-6037GSX.html

Ok I go into testdisk and this is what Iam doing.

Firstly I select the Toshiba drive and click proceed.

I then choose Intel/Pc Partition

Then Analyse.

On the next screen I get the Partition/start/end/size in sectors. (no numbers)

Then underneath it says Partition: READ ERROR

I click NEXT

testdisk under vista (Y/N).? I click NO as im running under xp


Next screen reads like this.
start end size
*HPFC-NTFC 0 32 33 7295 204 13 117204992


I try to choose P (list files) and I get this message
CANT OPENFILESYSTEM FILESYSTEM SEEMS DAMAGED


So I QUIT that section

What do I do from here? It also isnt reading or writing files.

[Paul Komski]

Which is more important data recovery or a working hard drive?

[hewittinspain]

A working Hard drive. Things that are on there are backed up so it can be wiped for all I care. The Hard drive is fairly new so I just want it working.