External USB drive only recognised as I unplug it?!

[Rob_B]

I'm stumped...I use an external enclosure with a 3.5" SATA drive to backup pics etc, this works fine.

I have 2 x 80Gb 2.5" drives that i'm trying to get data off after my sister's laptop went kaput, the problem is that the aren't recognised by Windows at all until I unplug them, as I unplug them I get 3 prompts (I think they have 3 partitions on them) saying Drive 'x' needs to be formatted before it can be used.
Obviously the drive is not longer plugged in so I cant do anything at that point?

The LED on the enclosure goes off after a short time with the 80Gb drives plugged in but stays lit with the 3.5" drive.

I'm out of ideas, sometimes they come up in Device Manager but that says they are working & there are no updated drivers...

HELP!!

Rob

[PeterStoba]

You might have to initilize them from computer management?

Control panel - admin tools - computer management - disk management, should be there, right click the drive and away you go.

[no_numb]

I'm stumped...I use an external enclosure with a 3.5" SATA drive to backup pics etc, this works fine.

I have 2 x 80Gb 2.5" drives that i'm trying to get data off after my sister's laptop went kaput, the problem is that the aren't recognised by Windows at all until I unplug them, as I unplug them I get 3 prompts (I think they have 3 partitions on them) saying Drive 'x' needs to be formatted before it can be used.
Obviously the drive is not longer plugged in so I cant do anything at that point?

The LED on the enclosure goes off after a short time with the 80Gb drives plugged in but stays lit with the 3.5" drive.

I'm out of ideas, sometimes they come up in Device Manager but that says they are working & there are no updated drivers...

HELP!!

Rob

Seems to me if its saying they need formatting etc and it says that they are working etc then the data has been wiped and they need to be initialised. In windows 7 search in the start menu for computer management -> storage then it should have the disk there to initalise. I assume its similar for other versions of windows.

I had a problem with the same symptoms as yours however I dont think its likely you'll be able to get the data back with this method

[Rob_B]

I first tried this (right click my computer>manage) which didn't show the drives, now when I try this the storage management window doesnt populate at all with one drive, nothing appears for the other

Just to clarify, the drives don't show at all until I've unplugged them, only then does it pop up & say they need formatting (even though they are now no longer plugged in )

[scaryjim]

You say you have 2 x 80GB drives from the laptop - does this mean they were configured in RAID in the laptop? If so that might be the cause of your problems...

[Rob_B]

Nah, it went faulty (dropped by her kids) and they got a replacement drive which doesnt work either, the screen doesnt come on but it seems to boot & the backlight coms on so not sure what's going on. Tried to open the laptop but can't

[peterb]

Some 2.5" external USB powered drives take more power than a USB socket (especially a laptop) can supply. In that case plugging the drive in can pull the USB power supply voltage down to the extent that the drive won't work.

the solution (if that is the case) is to either use an external poersupply (if the enclosure supports it) or a double eneded USB cable. They have two plugs at one end so that they can be plugged into two USB ports. One supplies power and data, the other just supplies power.

[Rob_B]

They are internal drives inside a mains powered USB enclosure

[vti_786]

i think the issue with your laptop is the graphics card, so you might need a new mobo, but try the hdd out first

[mrochester]

I had a friends hard drive that did exactly the same thing. The drive would show up in my computer, but the contents would never display. When unplugging it, I'd get a message saying the drive needed formatting before it could be used. The drive was broken - went in the bin.

[Rob_B]

I'm going to try bunging them in my PS3 to see if that can format them, just seems strange than a supposedly new replacement drive is also dead!