Can't Access External Hard Drive/Former laptop Hard disk

OK, Once I came to know that it is a hybrid HDD and showing only the memory chip space, I knew that SeaTools may not run. That is why I did not insist on it further.

Hope you will get the right and competent tech support from Seagate. Keep us posted of further developments. That should help us give the right recommendations and correct us if wrong. We learn a lot from user experiences.

jumanji said:

OK, Once I came to know that it is a hybrid HDD and showing only the memory chip space, I knew that SeaTools may not run. That is why I did not insist on it further.

Hope you will get the right and competent tech support from Seagate. Keep us posted of further developments. That should help us give the right recommendations and correct us if wrong. We learn a lot from user experiences.

So far Seagate's tech support hasn't been helpful. Yesterday they requested that I NOT connect my HDD externally via the USB but to use a SATA. I informed them that I don't have a SATA input on my laptop. About an hour ago they replied for me to install my drive to a desktop computer internally as a secondary device via a SATA cable, but I don't have access to a desktop. They're making the USB cable the stumbling block to further assistance, claiming they can't diagnose whether the issue is with the drive or its compatibility with the adapter.

What now?

"What USB device are you using to connect the old laptop HDD? Is it an enclosure or SATA to USB adapter? Does it work with other HDDs ? Any such interface should be cleared first."

That was my comment in my post#17. Ideally if we suspect an HDD, it should be connected directly to the motherboard without bringing another interface inbetween. I also recommend it that way. But after I came to know that your HDD was a hybrid HDD, I accepted your PW screenshot in post #14 as true and that your interface SATA to USB adapter is also OK.(Had it been a normal HDD I would also have insisted that you do a direct connection or connect a good HDD through the SATA to USB adapter and post a screenshort to convince me that your interface is OK)

But then it will be hard to convince the Seagate people if they decide to go by the rulebook that you should only resort to a direct connection without any interface inbetween.

If you have a friend who has a desktop, you can do a direct connection and do whatever they want you to do. But be sure to send them a PW screeenshot that shows that the drive reads only the chip memory of 1.5 GB.

Sometimes you have to dance to the tunes.

jumanji said:

"What USB device are you using to connect the old laptop HDD? Is it an enclosure or SATA to USB adapter? Does it work with other HDDs ? Any such interface should be cleared first."

That was my comment in my post#17. Ideally if we suspect an HDD, it should be connected directly to the motherboard without bringing another interface inbetween. I also recommend it that way. But after I came to know that your HDD was a hybrid HDD, I accepted your PW screenshot in post #14 as true and that your interface SATA to USB adapter is also OK.(Had it been a normal HDD I would also have insisted that you do a direct connection or connect a good HDD through the SATA to USB adapter and post a screenshort to convince me that your interface is OK)

But then it will be hard to convince the Seagate people if they decide to go by the rulebook that you should only resort to a direct connection without any interface inbetween.

If you have a friend who has a desktop, you can do a direct connection and do whatever they want you to do. But be sure to send them a PW screeenshot that shows that the drive reads only the chip memory of 1.5 GB.

Sometimes you have to dance to the tunes.

Eureka! I actually got lucky!. I tried the disk management again and it worked. I was initially probably wrong. It doesn't hang or freeze. It just takes a long time- over an hour. I already sent them the followup e-mail with the screenshot. I've attached it here as well.

OK. Let us see what Seagate will advise.

jumanji said:

OK. Let us see what Seagate will advise.

Seagate has given up on me and advised me to approach a data recovery lab. Their seagate recovery tool simply didn't work on my hdd.

OK, do this now as a last resort. In the WDM screenshot in your post #24, drive E and F both have a drive letter but show as RAW. That indicates a severe file system corruption - may be due to bad sectors..

Run check disk from command prompt.

Open Command prompt. Start > All programs > Accessories > Command Prompt

Type
CHKDSK K: /f /v /r /x Press enter. Note: Replace K: with the actual drive letter of the RAW partition. Also note that before each option/switch in the command string there is a space.

Allow check disk to complete. Do this for both the RAW drives one after another.

Caution: Depending upon the severity, checkdisk may take hours and hours to complete. Do not lose your patience and do not abort checkdisk midway.. If it aborts by itself it is ok ( We have no control over it.). Do not use the computer for any other task while checkdisk is running. Leave it alone. Consider running it overnight so that you don't sit and keep looking at it fiddling your fingers :).)

jumanji said:

OK, do this now as a last resort. In the WDM screenshot in your post #24, drive E and F both have a drive letter but show as RAW. That indicates a severe file system corruption - may be due to bad sectors..

Run check disk from command prompt.

Open Command prompt. Start > All programs > Accessories > Command Prompt

Type
CHKDSK K: /f /v /r /x Press enter. Note: Replace K: with the actual drive letter of the RAW partition. Also note that before each option/switch in the command string there is a space.

Allow check disk to complete. Do this for both the RAW drives one after another.

Caution: Depending upon the severity, checkdisk may take hours and hours to complete. Do not lose your patience and do not abort checkdisk midway.. If it aborts by itself it is ok ( We have no control over it.). Do not use the computer for any other task while checkdisk is running. Leave it alone. Consider running it overnight so that you don't sit and keep looking at it fiddling your fingers :).)

Hi. I finally got around to doing this last night and leaving the computer to work before I went to bed. This morning the message in command prompt was "C:\>chkdsk E: /f /v /r /x The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives." But we already knew it was RAW from the prior tests you asked me to run and provide screenshots of.

Is there any point in running the chkdsk tonight on the F: drive that it already also showed as raw as well?

No point. It appears to be a hardware fault . You may have to seek professional data recovery service.