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Tech - Hard Drive help please (1 Viewer)

Joined
Nov 29, 2017
RedCents
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Hi guys and gals,
Need some help on a second HDD I have installed in my other comp. Its registering in Disk Management, but not Windows Explorer. Its an old HDD I had around, I did not label it like a dummy, so I do not recall if there is good info on it (mostly would be pics of my kids and dogs) which if so I would like to keep. In the pic below its Disk 1 (931 GB). Also, its possible this is a HDD that was in an older Network Drive that died, but the HDD are still working, I'm unsure. Any help/software ideas that would allow me to get it and see if files are still there? As it is, its not listed as Fat or NTFS.hdd.jpg
 
Hi guys and gals,
Need some help on a second HDD I have installed in my other comp. Its registering in Disk Management, but not Windows Explorer. Its an old HDD I had around, I did not label it like a dummy, so I do not recall if there is good info on it (mostly would be pics of my kids and dogs) which if so I would like to keep. In the pic below its Disk 1 (931 GB). Also, its possible this is a HDD that was in an older Network Drive that died, but the HDD are still working, I'm unsure. Any help/software ideas that would allow me to get it and see if files are still there? As it is, its not listed as Fat or NTFS.View attachment 20695

Try using Recuva

 
Partition layout looks like a standard windows install. If it was a NAS disk it wouldnt have all those partitions.

Right click that 927.64gb partition and assign it a drive letter, like Q

Then you can browse it and decide if you need anything from it.

Catch me in discord if you need help
 
Good morning all,
@LamahHerder It will not allow me to assign a drive letter, all the options upon right clicking are greyed out. If I do a right click to the othe drive, it shows I can assign it a new letter.

@jande No, I never have tried Linux yet. I was curious if some NAS drives use some version of it as its own OS in its box? But as Lamah said, it looks like a regualr Windows system.

@morisato Sadly, I cannot.

I am currently still running the Recuva Software @exocet linked, Its been going all night and grown in its time. Last night I went to bed and it said 4 more hours, now it says 8 more.. ach. Its only 51% done. But I await eagerly with some kinda news. I really appreciate the help from everyone. I did find my old broken NAS and it has 2 drives in there still. Whenever this drive is finished I will be checking those next I may have some movies I downloaded for my kids. My free year of Disney + has me covered for now, but I know I'm not gonna keep it, their offering isnt too impressive.
 
Good morning all,
@LamahHerder It will not allow me to assign a drive letter, all the options upon right clicking are greyed out. If I do a right click to the othe drive, it shows I can assign it a new letter.

@jande No, I never have tried Linux yet. I was curious if some NAS drives use some version of it as its own OS in its box? But as Lamah said, it looks like a regualr Windows system.

@morisato Sadly, I cannot.

I am currently still running the Recuva Software @exocet linked, Its been going all night and grown in its time. Last night I went to bed and it said 4 more hours, now it says 8 more.. ach. Its only 51% done. But I await eagerly with some kinda news. I really appreciate the help from everyone. I did find my old broken NAS and it has 2 drives in there still. Whenever this drive is finished I will be checking those next I may have some movies I downloaded for my kids. My free year of Disney + has me covered for now, but I know I'm not gonna keep it, their offering isnt too impressive.

yea hopefully that will help you recover some type of files from it I have had good luck using that software but its not perfect.
 
Hello Redfrog

I hope you have resolved your disk quandary.

I'd like to throw in a few copper pieces to the thinking pot, if not for you, then perhaps others who may read this thread at a later date.

Windows for all it's mainstream use by many around the world can be a painful beast when it doesn't want to behave. Your case in point, it can see a hard drive, it can see partitions but won't let you play. What use is that!?!?

One of the useful tools for disks, is an external drive caddy, available for both 2.5" and 3.5" disk, and they frequently connect to usb ports.
Open up, slide drive in, close it up and plug it in.

This gives the flexibility of investigating almost anywhere, with a laptop, or a desktop, and not necessarily tie up some other computer. Emphasise that point, as you refer to it running for some hours. Appreciate, connection over USB can be slower but the tradeoff for ease of use without opening up computers, perhaps taking out other drives to connect this 'new' one etc.

In fact, coming to mind are also the small MicroSD cards. I had one recently that was playing up. Inserted to the port on laptop side. "hear" it click home but Windows wouldn't play with it. It saw it, but wouldn't drive letter assign etc.


This moves onto the second piece.

Earlier, I see Jande has mentioned Linux.

I'm going to specifically mention; Knoppix.

I've used this successfully over the last few years, and so again it features in the collection of useful tools.
What stands out in this case is, you do not need to install it.

Knoppix can run as a "live" image. That is to say, what you download from the internet can be put onto a CD, DVD or a USB stick. Put that into the computer and boot it.
It does not install anything onto your "C: drive" (or any other partition of your internal disks for that matter).

Knoppix can present a 'desktop' view with icons and window click things, or indeed can open 'terminal' view (think command prompt on Windows), and investigations can be done.

In my recent case with the SD card, I was able to copy key files I wanted off there onto another device and no longer worried about it. On a slight tangent I wanted to know which network card (chip / manufacturer) was inside a computer and it was quick to retrieve that way.

Here's a link for the Knoppix site.


Regards.
 
There are several steps to use older hard drives. If you don't care about what was on them, it is always best to re-partition and reformat before you assign a new drive letter. You can do most, or all, of that from the Win GUI. You can also use the cmd line commands (diskpart, format...).
 
Tech - Hard Drive help please

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