No drive letter allocated to HDD.

[KBeee]

I'm having major problems with an external USB2 400GB HDD.
When I plug it into my computer, it's recognised and seen by Windows XP, but no drive letter is allocated to it, so I'm unable to access my data (this drive contains 300GB of important data, so a reformat is out of the question).
I have 6 of these USB2 HDD's, and the only one that cannot be accessed is the one with my most important data on it!
Sods Law rools...


System - WinXP Pro SP2, ECS 680i BIOS P28 motherboard, C2D E6600 CPU.

Steps I've tried so far -
1. Tried the drive in other USB2 ports/on different computer.
2. Removed the drive from its case, and connected it to the IDE channel of the MB. BIOS saw the HDD (Samsung HD400LD), XP knew it was there, but still no drive letter.
3. Disk Manager sees the HDD as 372GB of unallocated space, and the only option available is to partition it, which I'm reluctant to do in case the data is lost.

I've looked at the HDD's manufacturers website and found HD utility software, Hutil 2.4, but it comes with a warning to backup your data before using the utility cos it might delete it, so I'm wary of using it.

I'm out of ideas on what to safely do.
I'm thinking that something along the lines of the drives MBR might have got corrupted, but no idea how to check, or what to do about it.

Any help wold be appreciated

[funnelhead]

I would say the mbr is corrupted, windows isnt seeing any partitions and thats why you're not getting a drive letter.

Have you tried chkdsk ing it? That could fix it, but it might nuke your data. I think the safest thing to do would be to run a data recovery program like ontrack and recover the data to another drive.

theres product info and a free trial here:

http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/

the trial will tell you if it can see your data. I've used this program many times where drives have shown as unformatted, and its worked 90%. If you hav alot of data it will take a long time, so perhaps just backup essential files in the first pass.

hth & GL

f

[funnelhead]

Actually, sod that, just look a few threads down where Gonzo has already provided a better program!

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=111216

Cheers Gonzo!

[KBeee]

Yep,
Cheers Gonzo and to you Funnelhead.
I've downloaded Test Disk, and it's running it's analysis at the moment - fingers crossed

[KBeee]

Well, analysis finished
All I got was -

Disk /dev/sdb - 400GB / 372 GiB - CHS 48641 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors






Structure: Ok

Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, Enter to continue

[KBeee]

Actually, this free Test Disk program seems to do pretty much the same as "donation required" Active Partition Recovery but without the GUI.
I could hit key "A" to add partition, but who knows what'd happen - might write a new partition losing my data, or might reconstruct the hard disk (which should only have 1 primary partition) no way of knowing.
Extensive help files are there, but all irrelevant - much like Windows Troubleshooter
"I can't watch my TV"
1. Have you got a TV
2. Have you got your eyes open
3. Is your TV plugged in
Did this solve your problem?
lol

[funnelhead]

ok well if fixing the partition didnt work then try the data recovery path........try to see if the ontrack software can see the contents of the partition.

f

[KBeee]

Well funnelhead, you saved my life and data!
I owe you a pint

Thanks for your help

[funnelhead]

No Problem, glad you got it back


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