old HDD not detected when used as external drive

Good afternoon guys.


I have a Lenovo V570 laptop with a 1TB HDD which was on the blink and was throwing errors about once a week. A very nice person on this forum suggested I swap out the old HDD for a new one - which I did. Using the same laptop, I'm now using the new HDD and it's working great with everything transferred over.


Problem is, when I attach the OLD HDD to the computer (also tried on 2 others) to try and get some old files off, it's not showing up when connected via the USB port. It will say "searching for drivers.....drivers could not be found".


Any ideas what else I could try? It's strange why it would run just fine as the primary HDD but not as an external drive.



Would appreciate any insight everyone might have. Thanks in advance.

Hello there,

What are you using to connect the HDD to a USB port? Are you using an external hard drive caddy or enclosure? If so, what make and model number is the enclosure?

Have you checked Disk Management to see if the HDD shows up there?

Had you checked Device Management. to see if there are any devices displaying exclamation marks within yellow triangles?

Hi Iko - no, just a regular Apricorn file transfer cable. What's strange is that I can view the files on my home laptop the same way, but on this laptop I can't. (I'm on the computer using the old HDD right now)


Disk Management doesn't show it either.

Did the cable come with cloning software on CD? Perhaps the device drivers are on the CD.

Nope, it's just a regular cable. One side is the USB side and the other fits into the back of the HDD.

Oh dear. Perhaps it would be worth comparing the two device manager windows from both laptops. If the device is recognised on one laptop, then should show in device management. If so, what is the device driver id?

Are you sure the connectors are firmly pushed into the computer USB and SATA connector?

Cables are firmly in place and still nothing. Can't really feel it spin either which leads me to believe there isn't enough juice to power it. Do all HDD's require an external power source to power up or is the USB power enough?

That picture is of Disk Management. Do you have a picture of Device Manager, from the Home Laptop. Should look like this:

You want to open up the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller tree, and the Universal Serial Bus controllers tree. Try this witht he cable plugged into the home laptop.


Yes, most External enclosures require their own power supply. Apricorn SATA-wire does not require separate power supply - if that is what you have got. But Apricorn SATA-wire comes with CD. What happens if you plug cable back into home laptop? Can you feel the drive running?

Apricorn SATA-wire only works on USB 3.0 connector - if that is the product that you have got.

Here is the cable I'm using





I had to put the new HDD back in my machine to finish some work. Any idea why the old HDD won't come up in Disk Mgmt but will come up as the primary boot HDD?