My laptop hard drive doesn't show up on desktop pc

jumanji said:

OK, now I know Inconnu means Unknown. Je ne parle pas francaise :). Seagate Seatools for windows did not recognise it as a seagate drive. It only said unknown. It could have tested the platters and given a pass. But that does not take us anywhere.

When Seagate introduced Momentus drives, I did want to buy one since it is a hybrid drive with part solid state memory and rest platter. The MBR/Boot/partition table resides in the solid state memory. I have a nasty feeling that the solid state memory inside your HDD has failed. In such a case, I would think your HDD may not be accessible to any data recovery software.

Now go ahead, takeout the laptop drive from the enclosure, connect it directly to a motherboard SATA port on a desktop. Run Seatools for windows and check whether it recognises it as a Seagate drive. Do the short and long Tests.Long Test should take a longtime. If it finishes off in a jiffy then it is not a valid result. Post screenshots of WDM and PW.

In case nothing shows up in Partition Wizard, you may have to seek Seagate support or Seagate Data recovery partners, who may be able to replace the solid state memory in the drive and try to bring the drive alive.

Now just curious to know what exactly was the problem in your laptop.Did it run the BIOS but won't boot from the HDD?

I'll try doing the "connect it directly to a motherboard SATA port on a desktop" tomorrow.

A 7 year old laptop that got damaged over the years and barely worked. One day I turned in one and the screen didn't even light up black but the power button was on and I could hear the fan. After having someone take a look a it he told me it had something to do with the ports and the mother board or graphics card, something like that but basically RIP.

If it's really dead can I like format it and turn it into a portable hard drive?

If after the direct connection also it is established that the HDD cannot be accessed, then you can try to initialise it and see what happens. In all probability it will fail to initialise, and that will be the end of the story for the user. Over to Seagate.

jumanji said:

We seem to have some light at the end of the tunnel.

Partition Wizard now shows your drive. Right click on the 202GB and 263GB partitions and try to give a drive letter ( Change Letter). Also click on "Explore" and check whether it shows your files.

Report the results.

Thank you so muchhhhh
You just made my week

Can I put the hard drive back in the enclosure or just keep it in the computer?

What?

I wanted you to give a drive letter. Did it take the drive letter?

I wanted you to explore and see whether you can see your files and report. Could you see the files?

Please report what happened.

Post a screenshot of how your drive appears in Partition Wizard after you did the above operations.

jumanji said:

What?

I wanted you to give a drive letter. Did it take the drive letter?

I wanted you to explore and see whether you can see your files and report. Could you see the files?

Please report what happened.

Post a screenshot of how your drive appears in Partition Wizard after you did the above operations.

Yes I gave it a number and it took it
Clicked on explore, it showed me what the HD contained then clicked on my user folder
a window showed up telling I didn't have access and asked whether I wanted to continue anyways I clicked yes and it took like 5 minutes to load and voila

After giving a drive letter, did you click on APPLY?

Is your drive now accessible in your computer? Just to complete the record, post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management. ( I just can't believe. Actually I knew from the PW screenshot, data is recoverable and was preparing to run TestDisk for recovering the data. Surprised that there is no need for it :))

You may not put it into the external enclosure. It may be defective. Please get it checked.

If your problem is resolved mark the thread as solved.

I am going out for a walk.

jumanji said:

After giving a drive letter, did you click on APPLY?

Is your drive now accessible in your computer? Just to complete the record, post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management. ( I just can't believe. Actually I knew from the PW screenshot, data is recoverable and was preparing to run TestDisk for recovering the data. Surprised that there is no need for it :))

You may not put it into the external enclosure. It may be defective. Please get it checked.

If your problem is resolved mark the thread as solved.

I am going out for a walk.

Yeah It's like I had my laptop back since everything is right where I left them.
So I gotta go get a new external enclosure?

Thanks for you help and have a nice walk