external HD help

[el_schorpio]

hello all....

i am having the following poblem with a Maxtor One Touch 3 mini USB...
when i connect the drive via the USB to my windows 7 machine i hear the sound of new hardware detected.
when i go to my computer i see the drive there but not HD info is being displayed ( HD size )..
when I click on the drive in order to see the data I see a green bar which is loading in windows 7 and nothing is happening.
it appears to freeze there...

windows is asking me to format the drive... it has 160 GB of data on it and i need it back...
what can i do? please help!!!!

i have almost the same problem with my xp machine...

Windows 7 pro SP 1...
Windows XP pro SP 3...

The drive used to work fine with Vista +SP1and2 and XP with SP2...

[russ18uk]

Use TestDisk and hope you can gain access to your data and not a complete failure. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[el_schorpio]

all i am getting is disk identification, please wait..
how long does this last?

[russ18uk]

Shouldn't take long. You could try taking the drive out of the enclosure. You'll lose warranty if you have it, obviously, but you could hook it up to your PC that way and use the boot CD http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

I wouldn't fix partitions, just get the data off.

[el_schorpio]

i dont think the program did anything. it did not change, it remains on the same screen...
i connected the drive on a XP SP2 machine and the issue is persisting.

On my laptop it found the drive, installed the drive..
it asked me to reboot and during bootup windows welcome it was hanging...

anything els i can do?
why this drive.. it has so many photos and data on it. i cant affordto lose it

[Horrorwood]

On your windows 7 pc with the drive plugged in do the following..

Press the windows key + R
Type diskmgmt.msc and press enter

Can you see the disk there?

[Orcass]

First thing you need to do is get the drive out of the enclosure as it may be the cause of the issue; the enclosure's electronics tend to be cheap to keep the cost of the drive down. Second you need to either connect the drive to a computer with a usb adapter or connected directly to the computer by sata/ide. If the drive is recognised and you can access the data then you are in good shape; back up the data to another drive and consider retiring the drive as it "may" have sustained damage if the enclosure was having power problems. If the drive still does not work you need to decide if you want to risk doing further possible damage to the drive by attempting to recover the data yourself by using a recover software. If the data is precious to you then give a couple of data recovery services a call and get some estimates as they are experts at getting at data on damaged drives. If you hear ANY odd or weird sounds coming from the drive then power it off instantly as it is a sign of mechanical issues and the platters are at risk.

[el_schorpio]

On your windows 7 pc with the drive plugged in do the following..

Press the windows key + R
Type diskmgmt.msc and press enter

Can you see the disk there?

it keeps saying connection to virtual disk service.... it does not seem to load correctly...

last night when i connected it to my laptop XP found the drive, it said to reboot.
I was messing with the cables a bit, but still no luck. still the same result...

--- Post Update ---

First thing you need to do is get the drive out of the enclosure as it may be the cause of the issue; the enclosure's electronics tend to be cheap to keep the cost of the drive down. Second you need to either connect the drive to a computer with a usb adapter or connected directly to the computer by sata/ide. If the drive is recognised and you can access the data then you are in good shape; back up the data to another drive and consider retiring the drive as it "may" have sustained damage if the enclosure was having power problems. If the drive still does not work you need to decide if you want to risk doing further possible damage to the drive by attempting to recover the data yourself by using a recover software. If the data is precious to you then give a couple of data recovery services a call and get some estimates as they are experts at getting at data on damaged drives. If you hear ANY odd or weird sounds coming from the drive then power it off instantly as it is a sign of mechanical issues and the platters are at risk.

i have read on some forums that people have changed the enclosure and it worked..
actually, i have read so much thing that the list of troubleshooting can be endless.

what if i go to the bios and and change from USB 3 or 2 to 1?

[russ18uk]

Tbh it's sounding like your drive is having trouble initialising. Power is getting to it but it can't spin up its drives. But none of us can heat your drive from over here: what noise is it making?

[el_schorpio]

the drive does not make any strange soud.
i can hear the drive spanning actually.

i think it could be a power related issue
can i show u a screenshot of what i see u?

i have tried a different single USB cable but not no luck.
I need a double USB cable or a seperate power unit.