Internal SATA WD 2tB on USB toaster with lots of data, cant detect

Hi, I probably have to explain past chain of events which might explain the cause/problem.

Prior to this, the 2TB internal SATA HDD was used for data storage via external USB toaster and it can be used for my windows XP pc and windows 7 notebook as external storage.

I hooked it into my pc via the SATA connectors (not usb toaster anymore) and also added another new 3TB HDD to the SATA connectors and booting pc via another USB drive with windows 7 installation. I wanted to install windows 7 to the new 3TB HDD but had issues because of the GPT area and my pc had old BIOS.

I did many things and googled many things but the following may be the only possible cause to my problem:
Shift and F10
type " diskpart.exe " hit return
then convert the disk to GPT with formatted partition as follows
type " list disk " hit return
type " Select disk 0" hit return ( this will select the 3tb hdd)
type " clean " hit return
type " convert GPT " hit return
type " create partition primary size=102400 " hit return
type " select partition 1 " hit return
type " format " hit return
exit
exit

Not sure the above was the reason, but above was meant to select the new 3tB HDD, it could have affected the connected 2TB HDD too.

I gave up trying to install windows 7 to the new 3TB HDD, disconnected it. Then I tried to install windows 7 to the 2TB HDD and this was when I noticed it could not be detected for installation (Windows installation error code:0xC0000005).

So I plugged it back into my external USB toaster and my pc/notebook can't detect the HDD anymore and requests to format it. I can see it on DISK MANAGEMENT though.

I've tried using TESTDISK7 but it couldn't recover anything, there was a FAT32 boot error during the full scan.

Tried WESTERN DIGITAL DATA LIFEGUARD DIAGNOSTICS but nothing recoverable.

Tried PARAGON HARD DISK MANAGER 11, I can see the volume and my data/folders etc. but can't see it as physical drive. I can't do anything eg. recreate MBR, recover partition, etc.

Please help.

Hi there,
I would be glad to try and help, but could you clarify what is your primary goal at the moment? Do you need to recover the data that was on the 2TB HDD or do you want to install Windows on it?
If your motherboard doesn't have UEFI you cannot use your 3TB drive as a boot one.
If you don't need the data that was on the 2TB HDD you can just run the Write Zeros with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics ( if it's a WD drive if not it's better to download the manufacturer's diagnostics utility). This will completely erase everything that was on the HDD and you should be able to initialize it as MBR and install the Windows on it. However this is only applicable in case you don't need the data back.

Hope that helps.

Yes, I like to get back all my data and also install windows 7 on it.

TechpumpkinWD said:

Hi there,
I would be glad to try and help, but could you clarify what is your primary goal at the moment? Do you need to recover the data that was on the 2TB HDD or do you want to install Windows on it?
If your motherboard doesn't have UEFI you cannot use your 3TB drive as a boot one.
If you don't need the data that was on the 2TB HDD you can just run the Write Zeros with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics ( if it's a WD drive if not it's better to download the manufacturer's diagnostics utility). This will completely erase everything that was on the HDD and you should be able to initialize it as MBR and install the Windows on it. However this is only applicable in case you don't need the data back.

Hope that helps.

Well from what you explained so far it seems that you erased your HDD. If you were using just diskpart “clean” not “clean all” you might be able to get your data back. You should look for some good partition recovery software to try and restore the partition. This tread is about a similar problem, have a look DISKPART clean performed accidently. how to recover data?

Based on another forum recommendation, I've started using ACTIVE PARTITION RECOVERY. But I think it made things worse. Not only did it create a new MBR partition and wasted a day of scanning only to find FAT16 volume, it split my HDD to 3 parts (2 unallocated space and a FAT volume) when viewed from DISK MANAGEMENT or PARAGON MANAGER.



In the end, I had to delete all volumes and then format it as one NTFS partition. I'm now using RECUVA deep scan to hopefully get back all my previous data.... going to take hours to know result