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Accessing Information On Old Hard Drive

Forum Storage : General Storage - Accessing Information On Old Hard Drive

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Hi first time on here!!
Can anyone help!! I have Seagate 40gb AT Disc drive which was taken from a laptop which was damaged and replaced. I am trying to access it on my PC and the PC does not show it in My Computer as a drive. I have installed Swissknife and it knows it is there but it will not allow me to partition the drive or even delete the partition. The OS used on the HD was XP.... Any Help would be greatly appreciated as to how I can access the information.

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I'm assuming this device is PATA. If so, is the drive installed as a slave or master? If you installed it as a slave you will need to strap (jumper) it for slave.

Did you connect the Molex connector on the adapter?

Message edited by Zorg on 09-22-2008 at 08:08:33 PM

Reply to Zorg

I see that Swissknife is for external drives. Did you plug the drive in via USB?

Reply to Zorg

Yes plugged in using USB, it is set up as slave drive. Thanks

Reply to ashingtoon

If it's USB it should be master, I'm not even sure it matters.

Get a Notebook Hard Drive to Desktop Adapter (2.5" to 3.5" ), strap the drive accordingly and plug it into the ribbon cable. You can probably get it from a local shop. You don't really need the rails for mounting, you can set it on a piece of cardboard.

Be sure to verify pin one on the adapter to make sure it's not backwards. I marked it with a red Sharpy, it makes it easier in the future.

Message edited by Zorg on 09-22-2008 at 08:51:18 PM

Reply to Zorg

Zorg - Thanks for replying again. The drive i am using is housed in an enclosure as i want to use it as a portable hard drive. I am trying to connect it to USB 2.0 port, I have made drive master and whilst the pc makes a beeb when adding the drive i cannot see drive anywhere including my computer disc management. Would it matter do you think that the drive contains full os from my old laptop?

Reply to ashingtoon

Does your PC need you to load a driver to use a HDD in an external USB enclosure? Take a look in Control Panel ... System ... Hardware ... Device Manager to see if the external enclosure is among the attached USB devices. If so, check the details of its driver. If not, maybe you need the driver.

Reply to Paperdoc

If you need the data, then get the adaptor and connect it directly to the Ribbon cable. Then you can connect it to the USB and set it up in Disk Management.

Right click My Computer and click Manage and then click Disk Management on the left.

You can go in there and see what you can do first. Be careful not to partition or format or your data will be gone, obviously.

Message edited by Zorg on 09-24-2008 at 11:53:47 PM

Reply to Zorg

Thanks connecting it to the ribbon did the trick!! Thank you for all your help especially Zorg!!

Reply to ashingtoon

Happy to see it worked out.

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