Posted: 5/22/2010 6:07:54 AM EDT
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A couple/three years ago I got an external hard drive (a "MyBook", 750gb iirc). The power supply apparently stopped working, and it was no longer recongnized by the computer. Occasionally I could get it to work (by wiggling the power cord connection) but finally it just stopped.
I read online that the MyBook was simply a hard drive, mounted in a housing....the site said power supplies often go out, it was an easy task to just take out the HD and mount it in a docking station, like this one: http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1346&ID=1642 My reading of the page made it seem like it was a plug-n-play deal....but when I hooked everything up, the station's driver loads, I get a "your device is ready", but the computer doesn't provide me with a place to go to access the files. I have a Win XP laptop (and a Win Vista desktop). Currently, the station is on the laptop. Am I forgetting something? Would it be easier to use the Vista computer? Is this something a computer shop should be doing? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, as I don't want to lose the data on the HD. Thanks! 
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Is the drive dynamic?
Sometimes you need to go into disk manager and import foreign disk. Right click on "my computer", select "manage", click on "disk management" and then look to see if you have any disks that say "foreign disk". If so, right click on that disk and select "import foreign disk" (or something similar). You might also just need to assign the partition a drive letter. With the docking station turned off, enter disk management (steps above) and take note of which drives and partitions are currently in there. Turn on the external drive, and watch for the new disk to appear. The partition(s) on this disk may be valid but still need a drive letter assigned to them. Right click on the partition and select "change drive letter" (or something similar), and assign a letter to that partition. Repeat for any additional partitions on the drive as needed. Hopefully that will get you fixed up. |
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Is the drive dynamic? What is "dynamic"? The drive did have a whirring sound when it was working in the MyBook, but hasn't murmured at all since the docking station era. (I'm assuming dynamic means it has moving/motorized parts inside) Sometimes you need to go into disk manager and import foreign disk.
Right click on "my computer", select "manage", click on "disk management" and then look to see if you have any disks that say "foreign disk". If so, right click on that disk and select "import foreign disk" (or something similar). Only disks showing are the "C" drive and the DVD/CD. (I pulled down on the slider bar, there's only the two entries) 
You might also just need to assign the partition a drive letter. With the docking station turned off, enter disk management (steps above) and take note of which drives and partitions are currently in there. Turn on the external drive, and watch for the new disk to appear. The partition(s) on this disk may be valid but still need a drive letter assigned to them. Right click on the partition and select "change drive letter" (or something similar), and assign a letter to that partition. Repeat for any additional partitions on the drive as needed.
Hopefully that will get you fixed up. Started with it off, turned it on...no disk/drive appeared. This means....that maybe the disk is TU? If I bought a new HD, should that be PnPlay (using your instructions above?) Thanks! |
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Well... when you mentioned that your "driver loads" and you got a "device is ready" in your first post, I assumed the drive was working, just not recognized or configured properly in the disk management. However, looking at your screenshot, it appears that this is not the issue.
Can you check your device manager to see if there is a second disk listed? Also, check to make sure that the drive is seated properly in the docking station. I know that sometimes if I'm not paying attention, I will turn the drive around when inserting it, and then hit the power. The docking station will light up, but (obviously) no activity is possible with the drive not actually being plugged in to the docking station. On the handful of docking stations that I have used, I have not had to add any special drivers, do restarts, or much of anything other than what I listed in my first response. However, I haven't used one with XP (or even used XP itself for a long time). So while I think it should just plug and play, that might not be correct. For informational purposes, Dynamic disks are different than Basic discs, in that you can create RAID arrays and other fun stuff with dynamic disks. Your disk0 in your screenshot says "basic" and has a blue bar over the partition. If it were dynamic, it would say so (where it now says basic) and the partition(s) would be different colors depending on what type of array they are in. |
My device manager shot:
.....it shows "generic external USB device" under disk drives (I assume this is the docking station? Or is it the HD?), and a "USB mass storage device" under USB controllers. The "device is ready" and "driver loaded" were little pop-ups near the clock in the lower right corner of the desktop. It is seated properly. The pins are in a corner (and undamaged), and the depth is about right (I felt it engage the connector) I haven't tried it in my Vista computer yet....will try it in a few minutes. |
On my Vista, it loaded the drivers ok, but in the "disk management" screen it says the disk is "not initialized." There was an "initialization prompt." It gives two choices....I forget now, but the first has an "m" in it somewhere  and the other is like "guit" or something. The "guit" one is for drives larger than 2TB, or with some unusual things...didn't try to initialize the disk with it, because it sounded too exotic to be relevant)
Clicking on the first choice, I got a little screen with a small red "X" in it, saying "incorrect function." The drive was not locatable using the computer tree (the thing that shows the various drives, ports, etc) fwiw, there was no humming/vibration/signs of life from the HD during this process. I'm beginning to think the drive may be bad.  If so, can a shop recover the data that's on it? Would that be expensive (more than a hundred bucks?) There's probably 4 gigs of data that I'd like to have again.
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On my Vista, it loaded the drivers ok, but in the "disk management" screen it says the disk is "not initialized." There was an "initialization prompt." It gives two choices....I forget now, but the first has an "m" in it somewhere and the other is like "guit" or something. The "guit" one is for drives larger than 2TB, or with some unusual things...didn't try to initialize the disk with it, because it sounded too exotic to be relevant)
Clicking on the first choice, I got a little screen with a small red "X" in it, saying "incorrect function." The drive was not locatable using the computer tree (the thing that shows the various drives, ports, etc) fwiw, there was no humming/vibration/signs of life from the HD during this process. I'm beginning to think the drive may be bad. If so, can a shop recover the data that's on it? Would that be expensive (more than a hundred bucks?) There's probably 4 gigs of data that I'd like to have again.Ouch... that doesn't sound good. I've checked into data recovery on several occasions (for clients), I've never seen a reputable place offer services for under $500 (most are $1k or so). If that $ amt is out of the question, and you'll be discarding the drive anyhow... you might consider tinkering with it yourself to try to get it to work. If you (or someone you know) feels competent enough to try, you can try to find/buy an exact match to your dead drive and see if you can replace the board on it. Not the simplest of tasks, but worth a shot if you'll just be tossing it out anyhow. Hopefully you find a way to get back your data... perhaps there's another copy on a different drive/disc? It's times like these when it pays off to be paranoid. I have multiple copies of terabytes worth of pictures/video that I've taken over the years and that I can't replace if lost. I never have less than 3 copies of anything I want to keep, all on different systems/drives/locations. |
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On my Vista, it loaded the drivers ok, but in the "disk management" screen it says the disk is "not initialized." There was an "initialization prompt." It gives two choices....I forget now, but the first has an "m" in it somewhere and the other is like "guit" or something. The "guit" one is for drives larger than 2TB, or with some unusual things...didn't try to initialize the disk with it, because it sounded too exotic to be relevant)
Clicking on the first choice, I got a little screen with a small red "X" in it, saying "incorrect function." The drive was not locatable using the computer tree (the thing that shows the various drives, ports, etc) fwiw, there was no humming/vibration/signs of life from the HD during this process. I'm beginning to think the drive may be bad. If so, can a shop recover the data that's on it? Would that be expensive (more than a hundred bucks?) There's probably 4 gigs of data that I'd like to have again.Ouch... that doesn't sound good. I've checked into data recovery on several occasions (for clients), I've never seen a reputable place offer services for under $500 (most are $1k or so). Ouch, indeed....Suddenly I find that these files aren't *that* important! 
If that $ amt is out of the question, and you'll be discarding the drive anyhow... you might consider tinkering with it yourself to try to get it to work. If you (or someone you know) feels competent enough to try, you can try to find/buy an exact match to your dead drive and see if you can replace the board on it. Not the simplest of tasks, but worth a shot if you'll just be tossing it out anyhow.
I will probably be doing that (taking it apart just to see what makes it tick). Not betting on any likelihood of a fix, though....but it will be fun taking a peek. Hopefully you find a way to get back your data... perhaps there's another copy on a different drive/disc?
It's times like these when it pays off to be paranoid. I have multiple copies of terabytes worth of pictures/video that I've taken over the years and that I can't replace if lost. I never have less than 3 copies of anything I want to keep, all on different systems/drives/locations. The data was saved from my old computer (which was then given to my daughter). I had very little hope of her having kept the old files, but when I asked her she said "yeah, I still have it."  She had it buried into a couple of other folders, but it was all still there. Most of the info that was on the HD, anyway.
Definitely "lesson learned"....keep backups!!1! Thanks for the help! 
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