So I have an ancient laptop I am trying to remove data off of and the Windows 7 install is borked. Windows boots extremely slow and it takes hours for new devices to be detected if at all. I removed the HD and plugged it into an dock to just remove the photos/music from it externally onto my desktop. For some reason when doing that the drive is not detected in Disk Management. The dock does work with other drives and the drive can be felt/heard spinning up. Any suggestions before I just install Windows 10 and wipe out 5 years of photos/music?
edit
I should clarify that even when I finally get task manager to load it shows little to no CPU/RAM usage.
If the MBR is borked, then it would also exhibit the same symptoms (no boot, Disk Management won’t recognize) with the drive still being otherwise functional, and data intact but unreadable without partition info. There are numerous threads on here detailing how to use TestDisk to recover lost partitions. If the drive itself isn’t completely toast, then that would be one of the most likely ways of recovering the data yourself. If the data is important, then look at the link and search here or elsewhere how to use TestDisk; It hasn’t failed me as long as the disk itself isn’t dead.
Obligatory random jibberish about backing up your data before this happens since everyone seems to learn this the hard way.
Thanks for the replies guys. I did some quick googling on TestDisk and found Wendall’s video on it. I scanned it quick before I head to work and was curious how any utility will work if the drive isn’t recognized in Disk Manangement by a secondary system.
There is 0% chance of loading anything on the laptop itself to run any software. It takes almost 15 minutes to get My Computer to open…
I vote, plug the laptop drive into a PC with SATA power and data cable and do away with the external USB dock.
…
Or
make a deft linux bootable CD or flash drive and boot to that in the laptop to facilitate transferring the data. Any bootable linux distro should do. http://www.deftlinux.net/download/
I got linux to boot on a USB. For the life of me I can not get it to detect the external drive connected via USB. The original drive in question is plugged into the internal connector of the computer and detected just fine. I have done some searching on how to detect external usb drives but am unable to decipher anything… I am a complete Linux noob.
when running fdisk I see sda1, 2, 3, 4 and the first 3 appear to be the internal HD and the 4th is the USB stick that linux is running from.
also tried lsusb and I don’t see it either…
I tried connecting to my home network so I can transfer to my freenas but I can’t seem to connect to that either. struggling tonight
A good chance that the drive can be mounted if you take take the enclosure apart and connect it via sata and pci power connector. if it’s detected, you can dd the drive or run photorec.
Well I built the FreeNAS for her photog business several years back. Before we started dating she was still storing everything on janky external hard drives…
I sourced an adapter from a buddy and it worked like a charm. I told him I was ordering one that stated it was driverless and he apparently had an extra he gave me.
I have it hooked up now and attempting to DD the drive. I might pick up a second one though if my HD dock isn’t going to work on Linux.
some hardware docks may be problematic with linux same as with graphics cards
but there are work arounds
For most file and photo recovery i do I have a dedicated machine in the shop just for forensic purposes (not connected to the network for safety and legal reasons)
but most people dont have spare systems sitting around,
I imagine you can set up a raspberry pi and run clonezilla or dd rescue in a pinch
raspberry pi’s are small but powerful little gizmo’s
