[gbv750]

Hi,

I have 2 big problems. The first problem is that my F drive (my second hard drive) crashed on me. I turned on the computer a few days ago and the black start up screen said the primary drive was missing. I have a link to the F Drive on my desktop, and when the computer finished loading, the link had a red question mark on the icon. I clicked on it, and at first I saw the usual folders. When I clicked on the folders, the computer hung, and a yellow exclamation point came up saying that folder F:Music failed...Folder F: Photos failed...Data on F failed.

That was a big enough problem. Then came problem number two.

I tried to see on my own if something changed in the boot settings or set up log. After fussing with it a few times and restarting the computer, I began to get a blue XP user login screen for a password. The problem is, I do not have a password! It's my home computer, so I never made one. In safe mode, it asks for administrator password, which is a password that also doesn't exist. Is there a way I can fix this and salvage the data on both hard drives?

[makai]

Hello,
Unfortunately, what you're asking regarding passwords is against the GTG website Terms of Use...

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Due to the nature of online help we are not able to verify ownership, and will not be able to help bypass or recover any user passwords, cd keys, license codes, serial numbers, etc.

However, I can offer you some advice about your data. Remove both drives from the computer and slave them on another computer to retrieve/save your data. If you are forced to reinstall XP because you can't somehow get pass the password screen, then at least your data will be safe.

[gbv750]

Thanks for getting back to me. Can I hook up the internal desktop drives to a laptop computer, and if so, how do i do it?

[makai]

You would need a USB Enclosure to do this. What kind of drives are they? IDE or Sata? Are they both the same? What model numbers are the drives? I can help you locate an enclosure if you want... they're relatively cheap nowadays. Are you in the USA?

[gbv750]

I am in the USA. I know that the F Drive is a SATA, so I imagine the C Drive is, too, although I am pretty sure that the drives come from different manufacturers. The C Drive is a Dell Inspiron series PC, if that helps. Where would I find the model numbers on the drives?

[makai]

You would need to pull the drives to find the model numbers. The only reason I asked for them was to confirm their configuration (IDE/Sata), and possibly help you with formatting them if you needed to reinstall. Actually, nowadays, there are quite a few enclosures that can handle Sata and Pata (IDE) drives. You can find some at Newegg (very highly recommended online retailer). By the way, take the custormer reviews with a grain of salt.

[gbv750]

makai, on Nov 3 2009, 02:28 PM, said:

You would need to pull the drives to find the model numbers. The only reason I asked for them was to confirm their configuration (IDE/Sata), and possibly help you with formatting them if you needed to reinstall. Actually, nowadays, there are quite a few enclosures that can handle Sata and Pata (IDE) drives. You can find some at Newegg (very highly recommended online retailer). By the way, take the custormer reviews with a grain of salt.

hi,

I got an external hard drive caddy today from newegg, but the instructions concern me. according to the instructions it says "please notice! before you run fdisk, it will erase all your data from external HDD," which is obviously the last thing I want to do.

[makai]

Don't run fdisk.

All you want to do is install your drives into the enclosure, connect it to your laptop and then transfer your data.

[gbv750]

Here's an update. I hooked up my old C drive to the external drive and got all the necessary files off of it with no problems (thanks for the help on that). The F drive, which was the one that wasn't detected on the old computer, still poses problems. When I plugged it into the external drive, it sounds great. The drive purrs like a kitten. When I start up my laptop, the laptop detects it as it should. The problem is, even though my laptop says that the device is working and detects what kind of device it is, there no way to access the drive itself. When I click on "My Computer" there is no E Drive icon for the drive, as there was for the previous drive.

FYI, the drive is a Western Digital 4000kd. I couldn't find any designations for slaving the drive, so there are no jumpers in it.

[makai]

The problem you're having with the F drive doesn't sound good at all. FYI... this being a Sata drive means it doesn't require jumpers, thus you won't find any on the drive.

If you go to Start> right-click on MyComputer>manage, does the drive show up under Storage>Disk management? If not, and it also doesn't show up in MyComputer, then it's likely the drive is dead. There's not much you can do if that's the case. There are HDD recovery services which are very expensive, but if the data on the drive is important (like irreplaceable photos), then it may be worth the investment. If the data is not that important, and the drive appears dead, you could risk freezing the drive (not the enclosure) and then quickly connecting the drive to the enclosure and then to your laptop to see if you can read it. Sometimes this works, but often it doesn't. It's more or less a last ditch effort where the user is willing to risk it all with the drive. You must accomplish this quite rapidly before water droplets form and short something out. It's a risk to everything connected, so keep this in mind.

[gbv750]

This is what I see in Disk Management:


The box for the external drive says "Dynamic" and "Foreign" and there are no details about it in the box. When I click on properties, it correctly indicates that it is a WD 40000KD drive, and that the device is working properly, but it says that its capacity is 0 MB.

[makai]

The only other thing I can think of doing is running WD's drive diagnostics. Something about it is not playing nice with Windows. You can get the WD stuff HERE. They offer DOS, CD, and even a Windows version you can try... although I don't know if it'll work if Windows doesn't recognize the drive and put it MyComputer.

[gbv750]

I ran the diagnostic test, but it didn't get beyond the cable check. When it stopped, it said "Cable test: read sector error." and "please check the cables." I am very certain I have the drive hooked up right. I have the 2 flat cables that came with the kit plugged into it and the motherboard, and the ribbon cable didn't seem to fit anywhere.

[makai]

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I have the 2 flat cables that came with the kit plugged into it and the motherboard, and the ribbon cable didn't seem to fit anywhere.

Not sure what this means. Sata drives only require a power cable that comes from the power supply to the drive, and a Sata cable that goes between the motherboard and drive. What ribbon cable are you talking about? What kind of "kit" is this? Can you post some screenshots of your setup, and cables?

[gbv750]

I have a Masscool External Hard drive kit, and it came with these 4 cables:

http://www.cooldrive...saseatacaf.html

http://www.cooldrive...atasapoca6.html

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_...6&sku=50051

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_...5&sku=27397

The first 2 cables were the ones I had plugged into my hard drive.