External hard drive not being read 1

[bert59]

I recently removed my 500gb external Hard drive and attached to another PC ( for what purpose I dont recall). I removed the HD using the " Safely Remove Hardware" feature located in the lower left hand tray. Yet when I put the harddrive back on the first computer it dosent show up when I click on My computer. I see the C: drive, the D: drive, the printer. Yet I dont see the HDD which was usually the E: drive. When I go to My computer/properties/device manager - i see the hard drive and indications say its working properly. If I go to
" Safely Remove Hardware" I can see the hard drive and everything indicates its working. yet i dont see it with a drive letter anywhere. so obvisouly i cany acess it. Oh and by the way I am using a USB hub. I removed the hard drive once again and attached it to my laptop which it was read and indicated the the device was ready, installed and ready to use. Yet I get the same problems as with the first computer. External HDD not shown when I open "My Computer" The Hard drive is getting power all power lights are on. Please help. This computer is drving me crazy. Arrrrrrgggh !!!!!!!!!

 

[goombawaho]

Yes, if you can see your data, you can purchase the license without having to re-run the program. Just put the license code in and your off to restoring.

BUT... why don't you run the utility for your external hard drive to see what's going on. Here's the link to the software you need to check that drive.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=304&sid=3&lang=en

 

[bert59]

Goombawahoo

I downloaded the WD software and ran the Data Life diagnostics test both the quick and extended test and both say my 500 external drive "Passed" !! And on one test ( Getbackdata) I could even see my data. Yet, I still dont see my drive under" My Computer" with an assigned drive letter. I guess once I restore I will see it ???
However is buying the Getbackdata the only way to restore?? The program is expensive???? You have been very helpful, what do you recomend.??

 

[goombawaho]

Maybe somebody will chime in about restoring the partition on your hard drive, which is apparently what happened - the drive lost its partition. WHY??!!! - good question.

GetDataBack is not the only program to restore data - there are others. I don't know of any that are free and that's the program I've used to restore data in the past and I trust it. Maybe you'll get some more suggestions on that too.

By the way, the software is only $79. Is that what you mean by "expensive". I guess it depends on how much your data is worth to you. Lots of people spend $500 and up on professional data recovery when the drive can't be "read" at all or needs parts transplanted into it. Think of $79 as being lucky/getting off easy.

Also, get some type of backup plan going. Mozy Home - $5 per month unlimited online backup for example. There are others as well.

 

[bert59]

Yeah I guess $80.00 is cheap compared to say $500.00 but here's the deal this exteral drive was my back up. And now that I think bout it all the data that is stored on my external is stored somewhere my C: drive. So I haven't lost all my data entirely but now the question is how do I get the external up and running. Don't care if I have to wipe it out and start clean can always put data from the C: back onto it and start additional back ups on to cds and dvd. Cause if the external crashed now could be its on its way out and don't want to go through this again. Although this has been a good learning experience. Thks again for all the help !!!

 

[flyboytim]

You could try the free program TestDisk from here:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

Here a some other free data recovery programs:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/datarecovery.shtml

 

[Freestone]

I am willing to bet that your external hard drive was formatted NTFS and your OS is XP....I've seen numerous posts on the forums here where this combination has resulted in lost partitions, but not data. A data recovery app was the only solution.

A free recovery app I've used with limited success is PC INSPECTOR File Recovery 4.x (

http://www.pcinspector.de/Default.htm?language=1).

I use GetDataBack almost exclusively, but since I am in the business of PC support, its price has been recovered many times over.

 

[goombawaho]

That doesn't even make sense (Freestone). XP is fully compatible with NTFS hard drives whether internal or external.

Hard drives lose their partitions, but not NORMALLY because of XP by itself. They usually need help from an incompetent user, but it can happen spontaneously.

 

[Freestone]

I know it doesn't make sense, goomba, but the reality is that there have been NUMEROUS posts in the forums here where users of XP with NTFS partitions have lost the ability to read said partitions, usually after reconfiguring the drive somehow, e.g. changing from Master to Slave. I am still betting bert59 fits this particular scenario. Perhaps he'll post back sometime.

 

[FredWagner]

I wonder if the laptop where the drive can be read is Vista or Windows 7 - and has made changes to the partition info which are not compatible with XP. could it be the laptop is 64 bit and the desktop is 32 bit ? or the other way around? sounds like it's time for a network server - a Buffalo LANstation works for me at home - accessible to Win2K laptop, Vista64 workstation, and a Win7 laptop. Much safer than moving a USB-connected external drive between different OS's.
Once you have the network server (under $200 US), copy the data from the old drive on the laptop onto the server drive.


Fred Wagner

 

[bert59]

First of all gentlemen I am not an incompetent user but more an inexprienced user. Thank you.

Just to recap I disconected my external HD from my Desktop using the " remove hardware safely function". I connected it to my labtop it was identified and i was able to view my data. I disconnected the drive using " remove hardware safely function". But when I plugged it back into the desktop it was now not being read. Both computers are using XP Pro. I used a software that tested the hardrive and it appears the the external is formated as FAT32 not NTFS the testting software wont identify any thing on the drive when i choose to run the test under NTFS. Under the Fat32 setting i see my data !! My question is 1 ) how do,
not only get my data back but 2 ) also how do i get the external drive to function proberly ! !!

I never reconfigured the drive ( too my knowledge, but then again i am somewhat inexpereinced ). I am going to try some of the remidies recommended by freestone and flyboy. Will get back to you all. At this point I am open to all suggestions on how to remedy this issue>
Thanks everybody !!

 

[Freestone]

Thank you for posting again bert59 with further info. Good thing goombawaho didn't take me up on that bet This is the first time I've heard of a FAT32 formatted partition being lost.

As far as getting your data back, are you asking how to use the tools or what tool to use? Just be aware that no matter what tool you use, you will be recovering your data to a drive separate from the one you are recovering from. That drive being recovered to will need suffcient free space to hold the recovered data.

 

[FredWagner]

I understand that the data on the drive IS visible on the Win7 laptop. Stop right there, you can see it and access it. If you need to be able to see the data from other PCs in your network, using other OS's get a hard drive with a network connection (NAS) - and copy the data to the network-connected drive. That eliminates the hassles with the local OS - you're going across the network. Anything else you do with 'recovery' tools is increasing your chances of losing the data altogether.
Moving USB-connected external drives among machines with different operating systems is begging for trouble. Stop messing around, and do the job right! Copy it to a network drive while you can still read it.

Fred Wagner

 

[bert59]

Mr. Wagner get on board.
Never did i say I was on a network. I am not. never did i say that my labtop has win7. Never did i say that my external HDD was read correctly by my labtop. i am not moving my hardrive around between different machines. The only reason that I put the harddrive on the labtop ( which ahs XP pro just like my desk top ) was to see it if would be identified on the labtop. When i connected it to the labtop it gave me all the same errors as from the desk top. It was not being assingned a drive letter. therefore I couldnt acces it.

I repeat:

Mr. Wagner get on board.
Never did i say I was on a network. I am not. never did i say that my labtop has win7. Never did i say that my external HDD was read correctly by my labtop. i am not moving my hardrive around between different machines. The only reason that I put the harddrive on the labtop ( which ahs XP pro just like my desk top ) was to see it if would be identified on the labtop. When i connected it to the labtop it gave me all the same errors as from the desk top. It was not being assingned a drive letter. there I couldnt acces it.

i am sure you mean well but please dont respond to my post. Thank you.

 

[edfair]

XP should be able to read FAT32 filesystems without problems, and does most of the time. In this case it appears that the drive has corrupted something that keeps it from being recognized.

It is time to (1)pay for the recovery software and try to recover it or (2) wipe the sucker out and rework it.

Tell us about the drive. 2" or 3". Does your external drive enclosure have a power supply, or does it power off the USB? If USB powered, that could be part of the issue. No need to re-create your problems if you are not using external power.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[goombawaho]

Agreed with edfair on his last comment, BUT.... I don't understand where you're at right now. If I understand: You said you didn't care about the data on the drive, so why not just reformat the drive and create a new partition either under windows or using another utility???

If you do care about the data, purchase GetDataBack for FAT32 and get the data back. Very simple and effective. As I said, I can't vouch for any FREE software.

If your still wondering about the mystery of losing the partition - that will likely remain a mystery.

The hard drive was probably formatted from the factory as FAT32 as many of the Western Digital drives WERE in the past. I saw one recently (a new one) which arrived as NTFS.
So that's why you could "see" your data using the GetDataBack FAT32 version and why you have to use that version to get your data back.

I don't see any more mysteries here except the loss of partition.

1. Recover data and then reformat drive OR
2. Format drive
3. Move on
4. Profit???

 

[flyboytim]

Perhaps this is not so much a hard disk problem, as a Microsoft Windows XP Professional issue.

Specifically a USB Selective Suspend issue.

The fix is to create a new registry value that prevents an OHCI controller from entering a suspended state.
There is a discussion here:

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-56277-unable-to-detect-external-harddisk

Maybe the problems Freestone mentioned are also due to this bug.

 

[goombawaho]

It's not a USB Seletive Suspend issue if the data can't be seen when the computer first starts up with the drive attached. Nothing would be "suspended" at that point.

 

[flyboytim]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940316

Just a little more information. It seems this is an XP SP2 problem. I haven't seen if SP3 fixes it, but it has never happened to me, and I swap my external USB HDD between XP (SP3) and various other machines with different OSes.

 

[goombawaho]

Then why can he see his data when he runs GetDataBack against that drive???

 

[flyboytim]

If the drive is not enumerated as a device, Windows refuses to talk with it, or to recognise its existence. It sometimes happens to other USB devices, e.g. Mice and Webcams if their drivers have not loaded properly, or they have noisy USB cables or connections.

Opening up XP's Device Manager and viewing the hidden devices often shows a slew of USB devices that have been loaded and unplugged, with their remnants remaining in the registry as ENUM entries. Hardware driver.INF files are implicated here too, when there may be several driver updates over a period of time, with orphaned registry entries left behind.

The Windows Registry is a poor database system, self-referencing, and highly redundant, a single point of failure, which inevitably leads to system slowdown.

Microsoft likes it that way, because it is a self-generating in-built obsolescence device, generating a desire on the part of the user to get something faster as time goes by. I like to imagine, if Windows 3.11 had been in continual development until today, how fast it would run on today's PCs, and how rarely it would crash.

On the up-side, Windows performance degradation over time generates the drive for ever faster hardware at affordable cost.

I can only guess that GetDataBack works at a lower level, and does not rely on the registry, or various drivers to see what is low level data on the disk. It looks at the partition table, the MFT, and reads the disk like a hex editor would.


Vista has a similar problem with reading External hard Drives:

Why does Windows Vista fail to detect or install drivers for an external hard drive?
Answer
Problem:
During the initial installation of an external hard drive, Windows Vista does not locate or install drivers for the external hard drive. Windows Vista might report that there is “no driver found for you device” and/or will not display the pre-installed Vista OEM drivers. Even by manually selecting the driver, you will still get the “no driver found…” error.

Cause:
This is most likely caused by a corrupted INFCACHE.1 file. This file stores the location of drivers and their INF files. This file is hidden, has restricted access, and can be found in “c:\windows\inf”.

Resolution:
Delete the INFCACHE.1 file and it will force Windows to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 file the next time Windows searches for drivers. To delete this file, you have to set the security permissions of it to allow Full Control for the User Group Administrators or full control for your user account. Please follow the directions below:

Open a Windows Explorer window by right clicking on Start and then clicking on Explore.

In the address bar, type C:\windows\inf and press Enter.

Find and then right click on the file named INFCACHE.1.

Select Properties.

Click on the Security tab.

Click on Edit to edit the permissions of the file.

Click on Add to add User Groups.

Type Administrators in the User Groups field and click on OK.

Set Administrators to Full Control and click on OK.

Move or delete the file INFCACHE.1.

Reinstall a device to force Windows to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 file (DO NOT reinstall the same external hard drive that you were having issues detecting before. Please connect another USB device other than the one that Vista had an issue detecting).
This detection issue can happen several times in a row, but repeat the steps 1-11 and try again until this works.