Dead IDE Drive

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 19 Jan 2011 2:38 pm

I had a USB 2.5" hard drive that I took to school to move some files around between my computer and student computers before I got them all networked. I guess one of the kids killed the drive when I was gone one day. I thought it might be just the enclosure that was bad (because one of the USB ports has killed some other USB flash drives. I ordered a new USB IDE 2.5" enclosure and put my drive in it. When I plug it into a computer that I know has a good USB port, it gets recognized as mass storage but I can't see anything about the actual hard drive. No properties, not format option, etc. I looked in the hard drive manager in System Tools but the drive doesn't appear there. Any ideas? Is the drive destroyed?

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 19 Jan 2011 3:05 pm

The USB hard drive, like any other USB memory capable product, must be properly stopped and ejected, using the Safely Remove Hardware systray icon. Failure to stop before unplugging a USB device usually results in a lockout of the device and inability to read or access its contents.

Please place a dunce cap on and sit in your virtual corner for 1000 milliseconds!

Now that you have served your time, you can try to salvage the disk thusly. Connect the disk to the USB enclosure and power it on. From an account with Administrator overrides (Windows Vista or 7 "Standard User" or XP "Computer Administrator"), open My Computer and right click on the icon for the USB drive. From the flyout options select Properties. From the disk's properties, select the Tools tab, then, in the Error Checking section, click Check Now. Check the box to fix file system errors, then proceed.

At this point, Chkdsk will run on the drive in the enclosure and will attempt to recover the info on the master filing table index (MFT). If you are lucky, everything will be available after Chkdsk has completed its operation.

You can also try to open, then Stop the USB drive, unplug it, then plug it back in and try to open it again.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 19 Jan 2011 9:49 pm

I think you missed the point Wiz. I can't right click on it. No properties or anything like that. I don't get a pop-up menu at all.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 19 Jan 2011 11:18 pm

You might have to assign a drive letter to it if you can't even see it in Windows Explorer.

In Windows 7 and I think Vista, you do that through Disk Management. I don't recall how it's done on earlier operating systems.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 20 Jan 2011 2:23 pm

The device shows up in Explorer. But I can't right-click on it like all the other drives. When I do, it just hangs for a few seconds and gives up. I think the drive is dead.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 20 Jan 2011 3:57 pm

Gary Shepherd wrote:The device shows up in Explorer. But I can't right-click on it like all the other drives. When I do, it just hangs for a few seconds and gives up. I think the drive is dead.

Take it out and freeze it in a ziplock bag for a couple of hours. Then take the baggie out, let it sit for no more than 2 minutes, then open the baggie and hook it back up and try again.

If the drive works for a while, then stops, the bearing were worn out. If the drive works for a while, then begins to make clicking noises, the seek head arm servo make be defective. If it continues working for a long time, you saved it.

If nothing happens after freezing the drive, consider it demised. Bereft of life it has shuffled off this mortal coil. It's gone to join the bleeding Vestibule Choir. It is an ex-hard drive.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 20 Jan 2011 4:29 pm

Vegetable choir, huh?
Yummy

None of the kids ever admitted to dropping the drive but I suspect that's what happened. But I see no signs of gravity on the case. No big deal. It's only 80gb and I've had it for a while but I think there were some files on it that I might like to have.

winston · Post by **winston** » 21 Jan 2011 3:41 pm

Gary
You might try a little program called Easeus Partition Recovery. I saved a flash drive with it.