USB drive question

Prenderb

Hi all,

Sis has been having trouble with a USB 640Gb drive not showing up. It's been tried on Mac (OS10), Vista and XP lappies and no joy except on the XP it installs itself but doesn't appear in My Computer. There are a couple of files in particular on the drive that we want to "rescue." Are there any suggestions for what I might be able to do in this case?

Thanks in advance,
Pren.

stuff.hunter

it looks like hdd failure / lost partition

Prenderb

Those sound like Words of Doom. Is there anything that can be done to rescue the files?

stuff.hunter

well, two possible issues here :
1st - bad one - hdd inside the case died ..not much to do here..
2nd - better one - faulty case --> take the hdd out, plug in into pc and copy needed files --> get new hdd case

ouups, forgot about 3rd : faulty USB cable

William Powell

stuff.hunter wrote: »

well, two possible issues here :
1st - bad one - hdd inside the case died ..not much to do here..
2nd - better one - faulty case --> take the hdd out, plug in into pc and copy needed files --> get new hdd case

ouups, forgot about 3rd : faulty USB cable

I'd really take a good look at the USB cable and check if its the same one you used when it did work. I've just bought a new portable (no external power supply) USB HDD and it only works correctly with the very short cable that came with it any other longer cable and the USB device gets detected as UNKNOWn DEVICE.

bonzodog2

Does it show up in Disk Management ?
Check cable and try free data recovery software like Recuva,Photorec,Restoration.

Kintarō Hattori

Does the drive spin when the power is turned on or when it's connected to the computer? As has been mentioned, the drive might actually be fine even though it's not showing up. Do you know how to get into 'Disk Management' to see if it appears there?

bonzodog2

Is it a 2.5" drive (probably with a Y cable with 2 USB plugs), or a 3.5" with its own PSU ?
At that size its prob a SATA either way, if time isn't a big factor you can prob get a new case for less than 15euro via ebay, more if you buy here.

Prenderb

Thanks for replies!
Its a 2.5" drive, with a single usb connection. The light on the drive works when it's plugged in.

I can see the drive in the manager alright, it shows up as 596Gb unallocated. It's called Disk 1, but doesn't appear to have an associated volume. Seems to me as if it's appearing as unformatted.... will those programs work? Searching for recuva now.

Recuva can't see the drive. Any suggestions?

bonzodog2

Some other DR progs you might look for might be better if partition does not appear formatted are r-STUDIO and getdataback. theyre techically not free though ....

If you haven't already, restart the pc completely

stuff.hunter

try GetDataBack : http://www.runtime.org/gdbnt.zip

bonzodog2

As I said in another thread recently, recover to a different drive !

Prenderb

Thanks all. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can take the drive out of the case very easily... no screws or clips visible. There might be breaking. USB doesn't seem to be a connection that'll work for this.

The_Thing

Has the drive got a 'Drive Letter' associated with it (D, or E,or F, etc)?

If not, then in Disk Management you'll have to assign a letter to it.

bonzodog2

Can you post a picture ?

You only need to assign a drive letter if you want it to always be that letter. If Windows detects a formatted partition, it will assign the next available letter to it, e.g. E: if you already have main disk as C: and CD/DVD as

The_Thing

Can you post a picture ?

Who are you asking?

If Windows detects a formatted partition

IF being the operative word.

I have often used Acronis Disk Director to entirely delete a FAT32 partition from a USB flash drive so that the drive is reported as being unallocated by the Acronis software and have then recreated a primary FAT32 partition, formatted it (default allocation size) and set the partition active.

In order to finalise the operation I then must restart my PC with the USB drive still plugged in, having done so I have consistently found that neither XP nor Windows 7 will allocate a drive letter for what is at this point a perfectly healthy drive (in fact Disk Management reports it as such) - only after I assign the drive a letter via Disk Management does it show up under 'My Computer', 'Explorer', etc.

Prenderb

Hi all, thanks again for your continuing help. I've uploaded a pic, to see if that helps, but there isn't any easy way of opening the case. No screws on any side of the case, I think it's been glued closed.



It does appear in Disk Manager, under device manager - disk drives, but without a drive letter. The confirmation sound when you plug something into the USB drive plays, but no sign of the drive...

The_Thing

You're nearly there.

In the upper right-hand window pane of "Disk-Management" right click the drive and select "Change drive letters and paths"

Select "Add", then in the next window you will be able to assign whatever drive letter you want, by default it will display the first available.

You will have to restart your PC for the changes to take place.

This should see you sorted.

Prenderb

The_Thing wrote: »

You're nearly there.

In the upper right-hand window pane of "Disk-Management" right click the drive and select "Change drive letters and paths"

Select "Add", then in the next window you will be able to assign whatever drive letter you want, by default it will display the first available.
.

Unfortunately, there is no "Change drive letters" in the right click menu. Properties show no volume contained either.

The_Thing

Does the drive have it's own external power supply or does it draw it's power over the USB cable?

If it's the latter you may need a Y USB cable to supply enough power over the cable to power the drive - you plug both legs of the Y into your PC and the end of the Y into the drive.

Prenderb

Power comes from USB cable. Will source a y-cable and try that.

coylemj

Prenderb wrote: »

Power comes from USB cable. Will source a y-cable and try that.

Wait, you may not need a 'Y' cable, some USB cables are no good to supply power and carry data, you could try a couple of different USB cables and one of them might do the biz.

I have a load of USB cables that came with cameras, satnavs and mobile phones, some of them are good for connecting USB drives and are able to supply the power to spin the disk, some are not, it's hit and miss.