Could Windows 7 Have Reformatted My Portable Harddrive

SusanHC · 29 Nov 2009

I am hoping very much that someone can help me out of a catastrophic situaition after having done a clean installation of Windows 7.

The situation is that I used my 500 GB Fugitsu HandyDrive to save Windows Easy Transfer file but now neither of my two computers will recognise the HandyDrive - they just keep saying “new hardware found - looking for drivers” but don’t find any.

This is devastating as it is (or was!) almost ¾ full of months of hard work - some backed up some not (my fault of course).

I have been using the HandyDrive to work between my 18” and 10” laptops both of which had Vista.

I have the Acer Windows 7 Upgrade Kit for the 18” laptop and after 4 failed upgrade attempts and one failed clean installation, I tried one last clean installation which at last was successful. Each time I ran the Upgrade Advisor and carried out the recommendations. The Handydrive was shown as “USB Mass Storage Device” and shown as being Compatible with Windows 7
.
I saved the Windows Easy Transfer file on the Handydrive.

After the successful installation of Windows 7, I carried out the Easy Transfer but was dismayed to find I had very few programs now (I had thought they would be on the Upgrade disc but cant find them). I took the Handydrive out of 18” (now with Windows 7) and plugged it into 10” (Vista) so that I could print the Upgrade Advisor file I had saved, which showed the programs I had before clean install. Disaster - it wouldn’t work! The HandDrive was not in my Ciomputer.

I have written to Fugitsu to see if they can help but in the meantime can anyone on this forum tell me what I’ve done? I will be devastated if I cant recover the data on the HandyDrive

Also how do I get the programs I am missing?

I do hope someone can help me. Apologies for such a long message.

richc46 · 29 Nov 2009

When doing a clean install there is only one way to get your old prograams, you must reinstall with key numbers if applicable.

Reinstalling programs is one downside of clean install. Easy Transfer is used for settings, email, personal data, but not programs.

I truly wish you luck with your situation,

ilesal · 29 Nov 2009

Oh dear..sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience with Win7 installs, mine was flawless and took 20minutes. Another 1hr of tweaking and installing from saved set-up files on my external drive and I was done.

Can I ask, have you tried to manually download the drivers for your handydrive? Perhaps checking their website?
I am not familiar with the method of so called "easy! transfer wizard, " and hope someone will be able to assist you further.

SusanHC · 29 Nov 2009

manhy thanks for reply and really glad you had a flawless upgrade

I have tried to find the drivers for handydrive but not been successful as yet.

gregrocker · 30 Nov 2009

The programs which came with your Acer that you are missing should be on the other disk provided with Acer Upgrade Kit. It actually provides a separate drivers/apps menu CD without bloatware so you can pick and choose.

The kit's Windows 7 DVD is a clean copy of Win7 so I boot from it to get the cleanest possible install. If you ran it from the desktop then it made a windows.old folder which might yield the driver you need right now. Plug it in and browse from the external's listing in the Device Manager>Update Driver to the windows.old windows/system32/drivers folder and see if it picks up the driver from there. Try Update Driver auto-search of internet. Try browsing the CD-ROM which came with the drive. Search for Windows Updates throughout the day with it still plugged.

Having the external not function because of the lack of a driver is totally fixable by finding the driver. Your external is probably tech supported so call them and stress the urgency. They will walk you through installing the driver and checking your data, and in the worst case they can help recover the data.

FYI an external is almost always a laptop Hard Drive in an enclosure with USB cable. So it can be disassembled easily enough and plugged into the laptop HD bay of most laptops and the data will be there. This is all the manufacturer would do to recover data, unless it is erased or damaged and then they would run special recovery programs. The are available by posting an explicit help message here in the General forum where it will be most visible. Here is a similar one from today: https://www.sevenforums.com/general-d...ly-photos.html

SusanHC · 30 Nov 2009

thanks so much for info Gregrocker. it has cheered me up so much and given me hope!! Will let you know how I get on.

gregrocker · 30 Nov 2009

Keep the faith, Susan. We will help you through this here, although I am going to bed just as you are waking there.

I actually have run several of the Acer Upgrade Kits here, so am familar because of that. I personally boot for the WIndows 7 DVD and CUstom clean install with formatting.

However, you mention you tried an Upgrade and then ran a clean install so I am guessing that is from the Vista and thus would have left you a windows.old folder in the system root files.

What I would do is browse the file I gave above in that windows.old folder from the Device Manager hardware listing for your external, on its Driver tab>Update driver so that it would find the driver it was using in Vista.

However you say that it won't run now even in your other Vista computer so I think you are going to need to call tech support for that drive to find out why. I have a lesser brand name external here but I was able to call their tech support (within one year) under warranty and they helped me through an issue saying they would replace the drive if that did not fix it. Let them know how important it is to you.

gregrocker · 05 Dec 2009

Do you have the windows.old folder in the root of your successful clean install of Win7? It has your files.