DriverZone Forums

Guys, some advice please:

I have bought a Smart-Drive external HDD enclosure and followed the plug-and-play set up, but the PC won't see the drive. Some info:

This is the product: http://www.usbnow.co.uk/External_Hard_Dr..._info.html

The HDD is an 80Gb Segate with a lot of data on it that I am desperater to retrieve. It was taken out of my old PC that was running XP but which suffered (I thikn) from a Virus that crashed the PC completely. The HD was the 2nd/slave and so olnly contained data.

The new PC is a Packard Bell with Vista Home Preium.

The External case shouldn't require drivers (according to the manufacturer) unless running Win 98.

When the old PC crashed I tried plugging the HD stright into the IDE cable of the new PC and running it as a slave, but the PC did not detect it, hence trying the USB approach. It is entirely possible that there is an issue with the HD.

Grateful fo any advice on how I can:

1. Get the Vista PC to see the HD via the external case

2. Check to see if any drivers are in fact necessary

3. If all else fails recover the data

Thanks all

Keith

it is possible that the drive needs to be configured via jumpers correctly to be seen try plugging it alone into secondairy ide (make sure secondary ide is enabled) make sure it is configured as a master device
i have seen a lot of seagage drives that were not identified by some systems however that might be a factor.

I tried that. No joy. When I changed the jumpers to master the PC detected the drive and installed the drivers, but I still can't see the drive, yet the BIOS does show that a drive is present (I restarted the PC and went into the BIOS)

I did, however, try another spare HDD and the PC DID detect and open it as it should.

I think it may be now an issue of trying to recover the data. Any ideas?

no drivers will be needed by vista to run that drive in the ex case.
what i think has happend is the partition has been deleted.

that would stop vista from reading the drive.

try the demo listed here with that drive.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/

Dave,

Thanks I'll give it a try and report back.

Keith

if you get the partition back but still can't access the files let me know i can email you a small program that will access the drive and call back any files that remain.

With the jumper set to Master I can see the drive and the partition, but not the files. If you could ping me the software I'd be grateful. I'll PM you my address just in case you can't otherwise see it on my profile.

Keith

just sent you a quick email please have a read.