ATA Hard Drive Mystery...Need Help

The computer I recently built uses SATA hard drives but I had a lot of data on the Seagate Barracuda ATA drives from my old computer. I bought an external drive housing which plugs in via USB, planning to install the two old drives one at a time and move the data over when I had a chance.

Let's call the "old" ATAs Drive E and Drive F.

Drive E was the main C drive in my old computer and worked fine from the external housing. I moved the data over successfully.

Drive F, the slave in my old computer, worked fine the first time I used it in the external housing but doesn't work now. It spins up and the disk 'busy' light comes on from time to time, and the computer even pops up a "New Hardware Found - Disk Drive" message, but that's it. It never appears in the "My Computer" folder as a drive and I can't get to it.

I switched it out for Drive E and that one again worked fine, so it's apparently not a problem with the external housing.

I deleted some old files the first time I accessed Drive F through the external housing. Is there something I might have deleted in error that could cause this result? If so, what can I do about it? I REALLY need the data on this drive!

Insight and suggestions welcome...

What sizes are the drives?

The one that works is 80 GB and the one that doesn't is 120 GB.

Make sure the jumpers on the hard drive are correct. If the drive is still set to slave, that could be your problem. In addition, sometimes hard drives require a jumper in a specific location even if the drive is set as a master and/or is the only drive on the cable.

Sorry, should have mentioned that I checked the jumpers and they're set correctly.

If you use an External enclosure YOU MUST set the drive as a Master - Regardless of your Internal drive settings. Those are basically ignored when you use the drive via USB. If you have it set to Slave then that is your problem for sure.

I think there is an adaptor that converts the SATA connection on your MB to IDE, might be worth trying it internally like that if you continue having a problem externally.

Another thing you might want to try is check your 'Device Manager' for any problems. Right Click 'My Computer' then go to the Hardware Tab, then 'Device Manager'. Anything that is conflicting should be clearly visible.

Hmmm...this is a mystery for sure. You could try the Windows "add hardware wizard," but to be honest I've never used it. Or, try refreshing the device list in the device manager:

Click Start->Run in the Windows Start Menu
Type "devmgmt.msc" in the box, then click OK
(this launches the device manager)
Right click on your hard drive icon in the device manager, and select "Scan for hardware changes."

If it finds anything you're in luck, otherwise I'm out of ideas.

ETA: Rinky beat me to it, but yeah...device manager sounds like it will clue you in to what's wrong.

Get to your Control Panel, open Administrative tools, then Computer Management, then Disk Management. Look to see if the drive shows up there, but doesn't have a drive letter assigned. If so, just give it a letter and it should show up fine. I've seen this happen a few times. Worth a shot.

Also, for some odd reason, sometimes you can type the drive letter, i.e. E: in the run box, and it'll open up, even if it's not showing in My Computer.

What we get here alot with jumpdrives is that it will assign the drive a letter that has already been assigned. Strange, I know, but Windows only seems to like to give out A: - G: Check to see what letter it is assigned in the disk manager as described by auditor. If you change the letter on the external drive in question to something not in use, it should pop right up. You should be able to use any letter through z: that isn't being used already.

Why not just hook up the 120GB as an internal drive on an ATA connection? Most motherboards have connections for both SATA and ATA drives. I have yet to see one that's strictly SATA. When you do it, just make sure youre not setting that one up as your boot drive in the BIOS.

If that doesn't work, try this....Go to www.techsupportforums.com and post your question in the "Hard Drive" forums. I'll warn you though...when people reply with ways to fix the problem, follow the steps EXACTLY as they are written. Don't try to take any shortcuts.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll start with the easiest and work my way through from there, and post the results in case it'll help anyone else.

Nothing worked. So next question, has anyone here used one of the data recovery services online? Any recommendations?

Thanks...

"Recover My Files" works mint

I appreciate the suggestion, but software won't work since the computer will not recognize the drive. I think there's physical damage.

My bad!

Data retrieval from a damaged drive can be very $

I'm not 100% sure of your situation but....

Have you tried putting the old drives back in their orginal computer - then plugging that computer into your home router or hub and just copying the files over to your new computer?

The old computer is dead and gone. It wouldn't boot up and since it was 5 years old, totally obsolete and no longer upgradeable, and I'd spent enough time trying to figure out what was wrong with it, I shipped it back to Dell for recycling.

Thanks for the suggestion though. I ended up having much of the data on backups though restoring it was pretty tedious and I did lose some stuff I needed.

Since I'm SOL anyway I may try freezing the drive and if that doesn't work, I may open it up and see if there's anything obvious. Always wondered what they look like inside, and I've read one account on the web where a guy claims to have fixed his by opening it up.

If you open the drive you will never see anything that was on it again...

These drives are only opened up in high end clean rooms during assembly

Even if you put it back together the same way it will most likely not work again

I know, if it comes to that it'll be more an exercise in curiosity with no expectation other than to chunk it in the trash when I'm done.

Got a quote from a data recovery place of $1295 but for that kind of money I'll live without the stuff I didn't have backed up.

I wouldn't give up just yet. Not if you need the files.

Ask some of your friends or family members and see if they have a computer a few years old sitting around their closet that you can borrow for a day or so.

Swap hard drives and try to boot it up.

Is it going to matter if this drive was a slave originally? It wouldn't have boot files on it, right? I have a Dell bought surplus from work that's in perfect order but runs Windows NT. Would that one be suitable?

Update...read online about freezing the drive and figured I had nothing to lose. Damn if I didn't get it working for about 5 minutes. Sadly, that wasn't enough time to transfer the files I needed. I'm going to try again today.

You can always run the drive from the freezer, or if you are really desperate to get some extended run time:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1028112728

It's dead. Haven't opened it up but after reading up on that I see why others have said it'll never work again after being opened. So...sayonara to the stuff I didn't have backed up, which turned out to be a couple of folders full of pics and a bunch of music. Some of the songs are on CDs I can reload so all in all, a loss that sucks but can be lived with.

Fortunately, with my new computer and Adobe Lightroom, my pics are downloaded to both the primary folder and an external drive backup as they come off the card. My computer is a mirror RAID setup and I'll also be putting my data on DVD's from time to time. Those will be kept off-site in case the house burns down.

If I lose anything with that setup, I just wasn't meant to have it.

Oh yeah, speaking of backing up - probably the coolest, most original thing to ever come from Microsoft - Windows Home Server

The thing I like the most about it? You can add hard drives as you need them, and it does all the work of distributing the data and protecting it across multiple drives.

Cool stuff! I'm hoping to get invited to beta test it...