Please help! Having trouble connecting HDD from an External

[TigerEmerald]

Hey all,

This is my first post in Tomshardware, but anyway here's the situation. My 2TB USB external Hard Drive holds all my family photos (item link below), it stopped registering as a Drive Letter in My Computer, but did pop up as a "USB Hard Drive" or something in Device Manager. Anyway I couldn't get to work so I connected the TWO drives inside the external directly to my computer. (they were SATA)

However, the drives seem to be having the same error and are not showing up in My Computer, but I can see a WL1000GSA1672 in the Device Manager, of course that is only one drive.

I know they are in a RAID array and I believe that disabling the RAID array will destroy my files. I know near to nothing about RAID Arrays, just that they have two HDDs act in syn as one.

How can I get my computer to see these drives? How do I plug in - and access the files - in two HDDs in a Raid Array to my computer?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822324008

Thank you for any assistance

 

[Rogue77777]

First, put them back iin the case they came in. If you try to enable your Motherboard raid, you'll most likely loose everyhting on those drives.
Did you install anything new, like another Hard drive or cd/dvd rom, this became an issue?
Have you tried reinstalling the software that came withit?
Does your system regconize a flash drive?
Does the external work on another pc?

 

[TigerEmerald]

First, put them back iin the case they came in. If you try to enable your Motherboard raid, you'll most likely loose everyhting on those drives.
Did you install anything new, like another Hard drive or cd/dvd rom, this became an issue?
Have you tried reinstalling the software that came withit?
Does your system regconize a flash drive?
Does the external work on another pc?

1. I did actually 'attempted' to enable Raid on my motherboard, I sincerely doubt anything really happened as all I did was press Crt-H (I think) and then after not being able to make heads or tales of the screen I restarted it. However, my computer started to constantly restart at the windows loading screen so I switch the BIOS back to default. Unfortunately, the computer also froze whenever I attempted to access Device Manager

2. Not really, possibly some USB problems

3. I did try, but the software (I kid you not) is for Windows 98 and will not install on my XP system (I have no idea why it is 98).

4. A USB Drive? Yes

5. No, the external used to work on the others as well, but got progressively worst over time.

 

[Rogue77777]

3. If you're using XP or above, there's really no drivers to install as the os already as them.
5. Anyime you find one of your drives is starting to fail, it's always best to remove the data. You may be able to use a good Data recovery program to retrieve your data. There's also a few good partition programs that will allow you to look at the data on a bad hard drive as long as it spins up and you can copy the data off it too.
Good luck

 

[440bx]

Tiger,

The device you got has its own implementation of disk spanning (commonly called JBOD). What that really means is that the drives are not accessible independently because the file system has information on both drives.

As Rogue said, the best place to start is to put the drives back in their enclosure _exactly_ the way they were originally and troubleshoot the problem in its original environment. Exactly in this case means, the drive that was originally at the top should be back at the top and the one at the bottom, obviously at the bottom. Switching the positions could have "detrimental" effects on the data.

I followed your link to Newegg and from there to the manufacturer's web site. I wanted to find out which chip EagleTech used to implement the JBOD function (could be a number of them, JMICRON, SiliconImage, Via, etc). A competent technician could potentially use that information.

If the drives seem to be functioning properly and they are just not recognized, the problem could simply be from the interface in the enclosure (not an uncommon problem). Replacing the enclosure would do the trick. Of course, you would like to have the enclosure replaced without having the hard drives replaced as well.

I will give you two suggestions that I believe are the most reasonable and practical options. Also, I am assuming that the information/data in the drives is very valuable to you.

1. If you feel you have sufficient technical knowledge and you know what you are doing then, purchase another unit from Newegg and swap the drives. If the problem was the enclosure that would take care of it. It's a bit expensive but at least you could use the new unit as a backup (and you should have one if the information is valuable to you)

2. Leave everything as it is and find a truly qualifed technician in your area. I emphasize truly because a lot of "technicians" I've known would fall under the weight of the word. What you are looking for, is someone that is knowledgeable enough that they will look at the chip used in the enclosure, locate a PCI or PCI-x card that uses the very same chip (very likely to be available, the enclosures use the same parts that are used in cards) and connect the drives to the card. What happens with the drives when using a direct connection would yield enough information to determine what the next step should be. A direct connection with the correct card might solve the problem entirely in which case you would _know_ that the problem is the enclosure and replacing it is the correct answer.

HTH.

 

[TigerEmerald]

Tiger,

The device you got has its own implementation of disk spanning (commonly called JBOD). What that really means is that the drives are not accessible independently because the file system has information on both drives.

As Rogue said, the best place to start is to put the drives back in their enclosure _exactly_ the way they were originally and troubleshoot the problem in its original environment. Exactly in this case means, the drive that was originally at the top should be back at the top and the one at the bottom, obviously at the bottom. Switching the positions could have "detrimental" effects on the data.

I followed your link to Newegg and from there to the manufacturer's web site. I wanted to find out which chip EagleTech used to implement the JBOD function (could be a number of them, JMICRON, SiliconImage, Via, etc). A competent technician could potentially use that information.

If the drives seem to be functioning properly and they are just not recognized, the problem could simply be from the interface in the enclosure (not an uncommon problem). Replacing the enclosure would do the trick. Of course, you would like to have the enclosure replaced without having the hard drives replaced as well.

I will give you two suggestions that I believe are the most reasonable and practical options. Also, I am assuming that the information/data in the drives is very valuable to you.

1. If you feel you have sufficient technical knowledge and you know what you are doing then, purchase another unit from Newegg and swap the drives. If the problem was the enclosure that would take care of it. It's a bit expensive but at least you could use the new unit as a backup (and you should have one if the information is valuable to you)

2. Leave everything as it is and find a truly qualifed technician in your area. I emphasize truly because a lot of "technicians" I've known would fall under the weight of the word. What you are looking for, is someone that is knowledgeable enough that they will look at the chip used in the enclosure, locate a PCI or PCI-x card that uses the very same chip (very likely to be available, the enclosures use the same parts that are used in cards) and connect the drives to the card. What happens with the drives when using a direct connection would yield enough information to determine what the next step should be. A direct connection with the correct card might solve the problem entirely in which case you would _know_ that the problem is the enclosure and replacing it is the correct answer.

HTH.

I cannot thank you enough, I really do appreciate the help. After some further testing it appears that I can only get my computer to see the top drive, it will constantly restart the machine if I plug in the bottom drive alone with my master drive.

For the moment I have decided to take it into a computer repair store and hope for the best. I will ask them to inspect the enclosure, if it is not working properly, I will take your advice and purchase a new one.

Also, using Partition Magic I saw that I had the capacity (I obviously didn't attempt) to integrate the top drive into my computer save that I had to format it. No signs of the second hard drive.

 

[440bx]

it will constantly restart the machine if I plug in the bottom drive alone with my master drive.

<snip>

No signs of the second hard drive.

You're welcome.

Taking the unit to a repair shop is a good idea. I cannot figure anything else without seeing the problem myself.

I hope they figure it for you. You may want to consider purchasing some way of backing up the information you have should a similar problem reoccur in the future.

Good luck.