question Freezing your hard drive. Anyone done it?

[fv1609]

GE Many thanks, seems worth a try!

[gritineye]

If you've had condensation in/on that hard drive and connected power to it whilst still wet, shorting and causing signal confusion, I would hold out little hope of it working and damage could be done to you second PC.

[Tony B]

Pack well in a bagwith plebty of dried warm Silca gel packets! That should clear any condensation. Maybe it should be done at the start?

[fv1609]

I think it is fairly warmed up by now. Even after the freezer the only moisture I could see was on the large metal pieces.

 

Anyone I've been into the BIOS & not seen anything I can set there. Lee put me on to various reading devices so I've ordered this that might come in handy in the future.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260499552064

[gritineye]

That gizmo looks just the ticket doesn't it, would save you plugging direct to the motherboard. Glad you're getting some other more informed input, wouldn't want you to be relying on me, given my signature..:shake:

[fv1609]

Well I floundered around in BIOS & tried not to upset anything. I always find it is very difficult to get out of BIOS & never quite sure the way I did it was the safest.

 

That kit looks to have the best selection of bits & pieces & comes with a manual. I looked at Maplin & they had various machines but not a lot of info to help the buyer if you don't know why you need to buy it. They were in the £40 region so £9 odd inc P&P that looked promising.

 

Although if I waited I could have had something from Hong Kong for about £3. The last time I ordered something from HK it came in less than a week, which I thought was pretty good & it cost a quarter of the price for the same thing in the UK.

 

Anyway GE thanks for your help & to Lee who has also been helping me.

[paul connor]

I have saved most of my old hard drives in the past. Seems odd it will not reconise it when placed in another machine.

It could be worth a try placing it inside an external hardrive case. See if it wil reconise it as an external drive Via USB.

Mine died a while back and I had a similar problem, turned out to be a motherboard issue,but it reconised the drive in an external case and all could be recovered, its still in use now as an external back up drive.

[paul connor]

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-5-Inch-SATA-USB-HDD-HD-ENCLOSURE-EXTERNAL-CADDY-CASE_W0QQitemZ270498187520QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL?hash=item3efaf2c900 this is what I bought and it has proved wonders,you HD will power Via USB.

[gazzaw]

Clive

 

sorry not been on for past few days and only caught up with thread. If all else fails I can have a word with the guy who took my one (one of my LCpls who works at Uni IT) and ask him to try and forensically recover your HDD. If you PM me I can send my Address

 

Gary

[fv1609]

Ok thank you both. But plodding on here, the box of tricks has arrived. It does say plug & play. I've plugged & nothing plays. There is a Users Manual (folded piece of paper) but this is not entirely helpful. There is no mention of XP, but it seems to cover win9g if you have that one.

 

 

I assume the bux is not the carboard bux it came in but is if you have the docking bux with connectors. This kit is a power unit & multiway sockets for the drive & then a lead terminating in a USB plug.

 

There is a mini CD with it with what seems to be drivers for Win98 & another "manual" intended for the use of a bux. Anyway I have two other HDs from an earlier PC. They fit onto other outlets of the multiway plug. I can power them up & sense life in them, but again the PC won't recognise either of them as being there.

 

The manual advises : If you have some misunderstand or question, please contact the local dealers.

 

Well I do have some misunderstand & feel like putting it in its cardboard bux & sending it to a local dealer. But has anyone used these adaptor in a bux or not? Should it be plug & play or is there something that needs to be turned on for recognition or somes ort of driver loaded? I don't understand 'set as master mode' in the first line. Many thanks.

[Marmite!!]

The one I showed you at Maplin's IS P&PLay... can't help you on this one sorry...

[fv1609]

The one I showed you at Maplin's IS P&PLay... can't help you on this one sorry...

 

I imagined it would be like this but in a bux. Well on the cardboard bux it came in it says "plug & play" but I'm a bit confused with all the nonsense on the CD quite why that is needed, I suspect by the titles it is for win9g!

[Marmite!!]

I imagined it would be like this but in a bux. Well on the cardboard bux it came in it says "plug & play" but I'm a bit confused with all the nonsense on the CD quite why that is needed, I suspect by the titles it is for win9g!

Did Borat sell it to you:nut:

[Mark Collins]

Clive

 

I have only just caught up with this thread, I have one of the devices you done a link for on ebay and it works fine with xp and vista the one I have has got 2 usb connectors and you need to have both plugged in for it to work properly (thats what i found anyway) if the computer is not detecting anyharddrives you plug into this I would check to see if the drivers for the usb port is working fine (if a printer or other device works) then the usb ports on the pc works fine the other reason could be depending on which service pack you have on the machine, as i have found that if you have still got sp1 they that might well be the problem if you have sp2 then should work fine the other thing you could try is if you have another hardrive with xp on for instance have that connected to the USB device and then boot the pc with the other harddrive and see if the pc will boot as this works for me. other than that you should not need to touch anything in the bios.

 

hope this helps (sorry if this has already been covered)

 

Mark

[fv1609]

Did Borat sell it to you:nut:

 

Or it might even have been Franck Eggelhoffer:

 

[fv1609]

Clive

 

I have only just caught up with this thread, I have one of the devices you done a link for on ebay and it works fine with xp and vista the one I have has got 2 usb connectors and you need to have both plugged in for it to work properly (thats what i found anyway) if the computer is not detecting anyharddrives you plug into this I would check to see if the drivers for the usb port is working fine (if a printer or other device works) then the usb ports on the pc works fine the other reason could be depending on which service pack you have on the machine, as i have found that if you have still got sp1 they that might well be the problem if you have sp2 then should work fine the other thing you could try is if you have another hardrive with xp on for instance have that connected to the USB device and then boot the pc with the other harddrive and see if the pc will boot as this works for me. other than that you should not need to touch anything in the bios.

 

hope this helps (sorry if this has already been covered)

 

Mark

 

Ok Mark thanks for comments. All the USB ports work with other things. I have up to SP3 now. I tried all three drives in my wife's PC but no joy there either.

 

There is that instruction to make sure the drive is set to master. But from what I descerned from earlier comments with the later SATA drives thats not needed. Although I notice the older two drives with long multiway connectors do have small link plugs in the smaller socket.

 

But surely I don't want the drive under test to assume the role as 'master' as presumably the master is the one with the OS? I just want to get at the files.

[david1212]

Yes OK. But the worry is now it doesn't look as if I can boot from USB.

 

So although I might have the files cloned & saved, I won't be able to get at the OS. So perhaps I should fit an internal second HD & pull plugs to make it boot from that if the need arises. Bit messy though, USB would have been nicer!

 

 

 

To boot from USB Hard Drive connect the drive and if required separate power supply then boot the computer, enter the BIOS and go to this screen.

 

Press enter on

Hard Disk Boot Priority

 

All the drives the BIOS can see will be listed

Move the one you want to boot from to the top of the list

Save settings, exit BIOS and let the system boot ....... hopefully

[fv1609]

David thank you. Well that will be interesteing to see what the BIOS recognises.

 

The only worry is that if I try to boot from the HD under test then nothing will run? Because the OS on that drive doesn't work & it's only the files I'm trying to access. One of the other HDs I'm testing has no OS on it as it was only used for file storage.

 

So would it still boot if I select one of the HDs to test?

[Mark Collins]

Ok Mark thanks for comments. All the USB ports work with other things. I have up to SP3 now. I tried all three drives in my wife's PC but no joy there either.

 

There is that instruction to make sure the drive is set to master. But from what I descerned from earlier comments with the later SATA drives thats not needed. Although I notice the older two drives with long multiway connectors do have small link plugs in the smaller socket.

 

But surely I don't want the drive under test to assume the role as 'master' as presumably the master is the one with the OS? I just want to get at the files.

 

Clive

 

With this device it doesn't matter if the drive (old type drives) is a master, cable select , or slave (where the little link plugs are) as once its plugged into the computer it should instantly recognise the drive and then should be able to get to the files. With SATA it will try and boot from the SATA drive on startup, once and if you get it working then plug in the device with the sata hard drive attached then it will recognise the driveand then you should be able to retreive the files.

 

Not trying to tell you how to suck eggs but the computer that you plugged the device into did you have the hardrive attached and power to the device and the sound on, normally you would get a sound to indicate that the device is recognised. and after a couple of minutes it should then work if no noise a balloon should appear in the lower right hand corner near the clock to say its found a device and you should get an icon like the graphic. If not then i would say that the device is faulty.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mark

[fv1609]

Mark ok thank you, don't worry you're not talkng down to me. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

I went into the BIOS with the suspect HD powered up & connected via USB. This is what I found.

 

 

The No.2 is a large storage drive permanently plugged into the USB.

 

There were no signs of life from the other two HDs either.

 

When its all running there is no sign of acknowledgement from the PC. No 'plonk' sound to say something has changed no icon on lower RHS & no sign of drive in 'My Computer'.

 

I'm just wondering if it is this plug adaptor system that I have is perhaps defective. It's just odd that all three HDs give no indication.

 

As it happens a Maplin opened last week 10 miles away luckily on my side of the edge of Salisabury. Given that this is a Monday in a store that has only just opened, I am hoping the staff will be keen to help. If they have any adaptors or docking boxes that can detect my drives if they have a running PC, then I'll buy it & send this 'bux' of tricks back to the ebay seller.

 

Many thanks.

[Mark Collins]

Mark ok thank you, don't worry you're not talkng down to me. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

I went into the BIOS with the suspect HD powered up & connected via USB. This is what I found.

 

 

The No.2 is a large storage drive permanently plugged into the USB.

 

There were no signs of life from the other two HDs either.

 

When its all running there is no sign of acknowledgement from the PC. No 'plonk' sound to say something has changed no icon on lower RHS & no sign of drive in 'My Computer'.

 

I'm just wondering if it is this plug adaptor system that I have is perhaps defective. It's just odd that all three HDs give no indication.

 

As it happens a Maplin opened last week 10 miles away luckily on my side of the edge of Salisabury. Given that this is a Monday in a store that has only just opened, I am hoping the staff will be keen to help. If they have any adaptors or docking boxes that can detect my drives if they have a running PC, then I'll buy it & send this 'bux' of tricks back to the ebay seller.

 

Many thanks.

 

Clive

 

If you have not had any sound then i would think the device is defective but what I would do is take the device with you and one of your hardrives and get them to try it to see if it works on their system if it works with their system, then we have eliminated is your end also with taking the device they will know what you are talking about as I get coustomers coming to me and ask for certain thing and give me so many diffrent names (which are usually wrongfor the device) and I than have to get them to explain what they want to do in order to get the right item.

 

If the device or hardrives are working you should get something as in my computer it would be displayed and then it would say if the drive is readable by being able to go into folders or you would get the (THIS DRIVE NEEDS FORMATTING) warning if the drive is defective even if there are files on the drive.

 

The other thing you could try is unplug the hardrive that is permanently connected as when you are plugging in the device it might think is the one thats their permanently and is trying to access it, also the channel that the permanent drive is plugged into might be the same one the other device is trying to use so you will get a device conflict.

 

Please keep me informed how you get on.

 

Mark

Edited January 25, 2010 by Mark Collins
addition

[fv1609]

Mark. Ok thanks. Yes I was hoping they could verify that their readers could detect if any of my drives had life to them. Then I would buy it. I would have gone there first if I had known there was one nearby, I know it would be more expensive than ebay, but if I get advice with a product then I don't mind at all.

 

Although they might have a ban on plugging in customer's devices in case they carried something nasty. Alternatively I'll see if there is a returns policy to allow me to take it back if it won't read any of them.

 

I was hoping if at least one drive worked, then I could dissect out the discs & transfer them to the working drive. I wonder if that is worth trying? I have been a radio amateur for 45 years & have worked on small circuit boards & indeed my day job used to be working on small difficult structures in a confined space. But is there compatability between the discs themselves & the reading procedures with all the attached circuitry?

[Mark Collins]

Mark. Ok thanks. Yes I was hoping they could verify that their readers could detect if any of my drives had life to them. Then I would buy it. I would have gone there first if I had known there was one nearby, I know it would be more expensive than ebay, but if I get advice with a product then I don't mind at all.

 

Although they might have a ban on plugging in customer's devices in case they carried something nasty. Alternatively I'll see if there is a returns policy to allow me to take it back if it won't read any of them.

 

I was hoping if at least one drive worked, then I could dissect out the discs & transfer them to the working drive. I wonder if that is worth trying? I have been a radio amateur for 45 years & have worked on small circuit boards & indeed my day job used to be working on small difficult structures in a confined space. But is there compatability between the discs themselves & the reading procedures with all the attached circuitry?

 

 

Clive

 

With dissecting the discs it is something I have never done (and possibly don't intend to do) as i am not good with electronics, personally I would dissect a drive that does not have any data on first (as a test) because if one of the drives do work and you start to dissect it you might lose the data anyway (if you do decide to dissect i would do it in a dust free and magnetic free enviroment if you can as this is possibly another way to lose data. All drives should all be compatible with each over as all hard drives are the same size (Diameter etc) i think its just the amount of discs in the drive that differs (again unknown as never done this) one working the reading procedure should be the same, again if you manage to dissect the drive its then working out which disc has all the data.

 

Hope this helps

 

Mark

[fv1609]

Mark

Bit of progress. Went to Maplin for £25 they had a SAT reader but not IDE. Anyway they couldn't try it but I was assured if it didn't work with my drive return it for a refund.

 

Just happened to walk accross to PCworld & for £25 they have a docking box that can take SAT or IDE drives. So I bought that with the same proviso. With this there were instructions correctly translated into English. It seems the drivers are only if you are running Win98.

 

So both the IDE drives operate in this craddle/box. After a few flashes of the LED on the panel the PC identifies a Mass Storage Device with icon on lower RH corner & on My Computer. Exploring them shows all the data intact & I last used them over 3 years ago. I always thought the system HD had failed & that's why I scrapped the PC. I'm now looking at the case & just wondering whether I could get that to run again. At least I have the XP disc for that, rather than being preinstalled on the HD.

 

That was the good news. The bad news is that the suspect SATA although identified as being there flags up that it "needs formatting." I assume that means it has a serious fault, beyond any retreval or exploration?

 

I think I know the answer to that! So I'm going to look at the discs insides & see which is best suited to retrieve & transplant to one of the working IDE drives!

 

I've not yet opened the Maplin box for SAT drives only, I can't think there will be anything in there that would make it work. Big thumbs down for the ebay one then.

[Mark Collins]

Mark

Bit of progress. Went to Maplin for £25 they had a SAT reader but not IDE. Anyway they couldn't try it but I was assured if it didn't work with my drive return it for a refund.

 

Just happened to walk accross to PCworld & for £25 they have a docking box that can take SAT or IDE drives. So I bought that with the same proviso. With this there were instructions correctly translated into English. It seems the drivers are only if you are running Win98.

 

So both the IDE drives operate in this craddle/box. After a few flashes of the LED on the panel the PC identifies a Mass Storage Device with icon on lower RH corner & on My Computer. Exploring them shows all the data intact & I last used them over 3 years ago. I always thought the system HD had failed & that's why I scrapped the PC. I'm now looking at the case & just wondering whether I could get that to run again. At least I have the XP disc for that, rather than being preinstalled on the HD.

 

That was the good news. The bad news is that the suspect SATA although identified as being there flags up that it "needs formatting." I assume that means it has a serious fault, beyond any retreval or exploration?

 

I think I know the answer to that! So I'm going to look at the discs insides & see which is best suited to retrieve & transplant to one of the working IDE drives!

 

I've not yet opened the Maplin box for SAT drives only, I can't think there will be anything in there that would make it work. Big thumbs down for the ebay one then.

 

CLive

 

Thanks for the update I would give the hard drive a go with the xp disc I know it could take a couple of hours if not less but its worth a shot, we get some people who install the operatiing system on another drive and install it into a pc with xp already on so that if the Master drive packs up they then just swap the Jumpers/lead to the other drive and they then can still use the pc, alternatively you could just install the hard drive into the pc you have at the moment and use that drive as data only (making sure you change the jumpers on the other drive/s to indicate that you have a spare/ or put the jump of the data one to cable select and the pc should detect it as a spare (you should not lose data doing this), if it doesn't work then its because its got bad sectors on the drive and then the drive is no good (even retreiving data can be difficult if damaged with bad sectors) and theres no way round this (least you then have a spare working drive, just in case) the sata drive does indicate that its a serious error and the only way you would get the data off it (with out opening the drive itself is to send it off to a data receovery company (at £300 a time to start and then a cost per gigabyte) it would work out expensive, I would would keep hold of the pc world one and send/take the other two back, hopefully you have not left feedback from the ebay one and i would email him and say that you have had problems with this device and ask for a refund.

 

Wish you luck in retreiving the data off the SATA drive.

 

Mark

Edited January 26, 2010 by Mark Collins
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