Motherboard fried, need files off of HDD. (SATA to USB)

[Balzotheclown]

A while ago (about 7 months now) the motherboard in my desktop computer went bad and I haven't had the money to replace it. I haven't particularly needed anything off of the Hard Drive until now. I went on Amazon and bought a SATA to USB kit so that I would be able to do it. I got everything hooked up and the drive powered up and I plugged it into my laptop. When I did this, it failed to install drivers for it and would flash the drives in Explorer for a second and then they went out and it said that I needed to format each one before use. I can't really do this because I need the information on them. Even when I click to format them, it can't bring it up (Says that Windows cannot access the drive and it is not connected properly). Help please! I could really use those files.

 

[Fred Garvin]

When you connect the hard drive to the USB adapter, can you hear the hard drive spin up? Lightly put your finger on the drive - can you feel it moving? The adapters are pretty much plug and play. But there's always the chance the drive you're trying to access has died.

Right click on My Computer and select Manage. Scroll down to Disk Management under Storage. Do you see your USB drive listed there?

As a test, try your adapter setup on another computer or with another hard drive - just to make sure the connections are all working.

 

[Balzotheclown]

The drive spins up properly when power is connected. As I said, it shows that the 3 different drives are there as I have 3 different partitioned sections. But they flash up for a second and then say that I need to format them. But then they disappear. I have tried the setup with different hard drives and it works fine.

 

[Fred Garvin]

I'm assuming the laptop you're connecting the external hard drive to is formatted as NTFS (not FAT32)?

It could be that you have file or partition table errors on the external hard drive. You may have to run something like check disk or Test disk on the external. I would make an image of the external hard drive before running any of the above programs. Easeus has some free backup and imaging software

 

[Balzotheclown]

The laptop is NTFS. How am I to make an image of it or test it when my laptop cannot even find the drives?

 

[Fred Garvin]

If you install EaseUS To do backup on your laptop, Easus should be able to recognize the drive in raw format. Then you'd do a disk/system backup, backing up all the partitions on the problem drive.

The EaseUS software also has the ability to make a bootable CD which you can boot to and do backup/restore tasks outside of Windows. It's hard to say exactly what the problem is with your drive from here. So a backup is always a good idea.

You could also try running the hard drive maker's diagnostic tools on the disk, but I would try to back it up first to prevent any possible data loss.

 

[Balzotheclown]

Alright, which program do I need off of that link you gave me for EaseUS?

 

[Fred Garvin]

Look for the link forEaseUS Todo Backup Free in the middle of the page

 

[Balzotheclown]

Will this backup the entire space of the partition, or will it only backup what is written? Because I only have the space on my laptop for use and no funds right now for a new external drive.

 

[Fred Garvin]

You'll have the option to backup the entire disk (all partitions) or choose individual partitions. Backing up the entire disk before trying to repair it is what I was suggesting, if you have the space.

Start Easeus and choose File Backup. See if the software even reads your external hard drive. If it reads your drive, try a test: Try and backup a few files or folders you need from the external to your laptop. Then open the new backup saved on your laptop and see if you can access any of those files.

 

[Balzotheclown]

I opened it up and tried to backup the partition that I needed. It said it could not find the file specified.

 

[Fred Garvin]

Right click on My Computer and go to Manage. Scroll down to Storage then Disk Management. See if you can find your external drive listed on the right.. It might be Disk 1, 2, 3 etc and listed as blank or unformatted. Right click on it and see if you can assign or change the drive letter to an unused letter to make it visible.

Easeus also has a few other free data & partition recovery programs you could try. Haven't used it, but I would try the partition recovery program first. The data recovery program is good, but extremely time consuming.

 

[Balzotheclown]

Well it had the partition on there, and I selected it to start the backup and that's when it said that it couldn't find the files. I will try the partition recovery tomorrow. It's getting late. But do you think it would work in my desktop still if I just replaced my motherboard?

 

[Fred Garvin]

I'm not sure. It really sounds like there is a problem with the partition table or a file table on the hard drive. Those USB connectors usually work well as long as all the connections are good. I use one regularly for data recovery on client's hard drives.

You could connect that hard drive to any desktop computer as a secondary drive and Windows should read it, as long as the drive is good. Try the connector and external drive on someone else's computer and see if you have the same problem. Or test a different external hard drive with the cable if you have access to another drive. That will help isolate the problem to the cable, drive or PC. My guess is your drive.

If no dice, move on to the free partition or data recovery software since you have nothing to lose. Maybe someone else will chime in if they have a better idea.