Hard drive information retrieval problem

Sup all, it's been a canny while since ive floated around these parts, hope all is well.
Anyway down to the problem, Ive been asked to get some information off of a hard drive but im having problems. Ive done this sort of thing before and it's been no problem. Anyway the problem that im having is that i can't explore the hard drive. It's in my device manager but i can't find it in 'my computer'. Ive taken the lil black thing off the back of the hard drive that would normally allow me to explore it and turn it into a slave drive but it's still not having it.
Any help would be most appreciated.

Perhaps it's not been assigned a drive letter for some reason? Right-click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Manager -> right-click the drive -> Change drive letter or access path. You can assign it a letter from there.

It doesn't give me the option to change the letter or the access path. Well saying that it doesn't even have an access path, if it had one of them i would be able to get access to it :p
Cheers for your help though:)

grab an ubuntu Live CD, and boot through it. then plug some USB HDD and backup whatever you need to.
Or use Hiren

Winternals ERD is also top notch, it was my favourite tool of all time when I had to access easily some password/damaged/faulty partitions or HDDs.
Microsoft then bought it and renamed it to this.

That's the thing it's not damaged, at least i don't think it is. It just won't show up in My Computer. Also i should state that the IDE hard drive is running out of my ONLY IDE slot. So i don't have any other dvd drives running.

So you have it set to slave, and it is connected in the slave position of the IDE cable, and it has a master device on the same cable?
Does the drive show up in teh bios? If not, then it will never show in windows.

No it doesn't have any other devices attachted to the IDE cable as far as i know ive setup everything correctly (hardware wise), yerr it's coming up in the bios aswell.

If it's the only device on the cable then put it on the end of the cable and set that jumper to master, or cable select.


edit: I think I misread something. It is showing up in device manager?
What about in disk management?
If it shows there, then next to it do you see any 'volumes' (Partitions)?
If it is showing partitions then right click on one and click assign drive letter

Firstly, glad to see you AD I was actually reading your posts in my Water cooled thread today on the first page from over a year ago. Glad to see you bud.

In disk management you may have to initialize the drive or set the partition to active. I had a problem like this a while back and that worked for me. Also did you try any data recovery software?

It IS showing up in the device manager, but im not sure where to find this disk management, is that in device manager?
Good to see you again Detale, i haven't tried data recovery software because i didn't think it would work if i can't get a pathway to it.

Right click on my computer>manage. In the left pane under storage you will see disk management. it will start the virtual disk service and you will have options there to initailize. What version of windows are you using BTW?

Im running windows vista home premium 32bit. I still can't find what your talking about in device management. What OS are you running it might be a tad different from mine or something.

Click on the "Start" button.
In an empty space of your start menu, right click and hit "properties".
A new menu will appear with tabs at the top...choose the "Start Menu" tab and click on "customize".
Scroll down the option list and check "Display on the All Programs list and Start menu" for System Administration Tools.

Now, on the right hand side of the start menu, along with My Computer and whatever else appears there will be Administrative Tools...click it.
"Computer Management" will be one of the options...click it.

A new window will appear, in the lefthand pane find "Disk Management"...click it and all your drives/storage devices will appear.
At the top of the center pane, the drives are listed, below that is a graphical representation.
If your drive appears, you can right click it's graphical pic and a menu of options displays.
If it doesn't, look in the righthand pane and find "More Options"...click and another option list appears.
Find "rescan discs" and see if that brings it up.

It won't allow me to anitialize it:\ it gives me these options and obv the options i do have aren't any good when i want to explore the hard drive:blink:.
Any thoughts?

I already gave you the solution, but you prefer to ignore it.
here goes another one, if you're cool with it http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

I didn't ignore it fella i just have no idea on how to use those pieces of software.

Have you tried data recovery software at all bud? I forget which one I used as it's on my main rig. I'm working off of the HTPC while I redo the rig.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acid_death69

I didn't ignore it fella i just have no idea on how to use those pieces of software.

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just put it on a CD, boot with it, and there you have tools to access damaged or locked partitions.
The ubuntu live CD is a full featured OS, that can run from a pen, if you download the ubuntu netbook remix (also on their site). From there, it's a Windows like UI and you can navigate to the HDDs that don't show up. No need for more command line stuff.
If you have any doubt after running it, I can walk you through how to recover unreadable HDDs.

kk i'll give it a try and i'll let you know if i have any difficulties

Ive tried installing that prgramme you mentioned and made a bootable flash drive but it didn't work. Im trying it with an external hard drive that i know my pc has tried to boot from (accidently).

Hard disk's data retrieval problem is common problem generally occur after the damage or after the infected system due to virus.To over come this situation consult to technicians as they can handle this matter more easier than any other person.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ItsFixed

Hard disk's data retrieval problem is common problem generally occur after the damage or after the infected system due to virus....

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That sentence doesn't even make sense, what is 'the damage' ? Anyway you spambot, that is a two year old thread you resurrected to type gibberish into.

I don't think it's a bot, just some guy who wants to advertise his site. Look for "itsfixed" in Google.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by anon

I don't think it's a bot, just some guy who wants to advertise his site. Look for "itsfixed" in Google.

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I call people who do this kind of advertising spambots, because they seem to in general have all the depth of an automated script. This moron couldn't even string a coherent sentence together. Would I want him fucking with my PC's ?..... I think not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by It'sFixed

Hard disk data retrieval is a solution to the common problem of what appears to be data loss, which generally occurs after a disk is damaged or the system is infected with a virus. Sometimes, files can be easily recovered with free to use software, but severe cases tend to require some consultation and/or service with a technician who is trained to perform this type of work.

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Now It'sFixed

That's my first and last lesson in authoring slimy advertising posts, you whore.

And yet here you are.