Can't Access my external HDD on windows 7.

[Khaos]

Hi there, I just got an external HDD in a lot from an auction, so it is used, and new to me.

The External HDD is an Western Digital SATA drive with the model # wd5000aakx001ca0. Ive looked it up and I am pretty sure the SATA drive inside is a Caviar Blue.

I have no driver installation disk or a SATA cable so I am running it USB to my computer. It has it's own external power source and sounds like it's running fine. As I said in the thread title, I am Running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on an Acer Aspire 5542-1615 HD Laptop with and AMD Athlon II x2 processor, and an ATI Radeon HD 4200 GPU.

I can see the external in my devices when it's plugged in and running, but I can't find it in my computer. I can find the USB in my device manager and in my Computer Management under disk management. But I cannot assign it a letter. It is not empty and I'm not hiding empty HDDs. I've tried every suggestion in another similar thread on this site attaining to an Asus eee 1000H notebook that had similar problems, with no luck so far.

Link: https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/cant-get-access-my-external-harddrive-t4034700.html

Ive downloaded and run WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics on an extended scan, and it found no errors or problems, yet I still can't access it or assign it a letter. I kinda want to see what is in the HDD so I really don't want to wipe it.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

- Khaos

 

[TriplexDread]

Try this

Start/search/

type in 'man' (without quotes)

"computer management" should appear near top

click it

then goto

disk management (wait for config info to load)

look for the drive you have connected

right click on the drive and mark it as active

it should appear within 'My computer'

Bit long winded but it should work

 

[Khaos]

Yeah, I've tried that as well with no success. The whole menu for the HDD is greyed out except for Delete this volume, and help.

Heres an image:

 

[EvanDavis]

Have you tried deleting the volume then formatting it ?

 

[Abarbarian]

http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/reviews/parted-magic-review

If you are still stuck the above is worth a try.

 

[Khaos]

Wouldn't deleting the partition delete the information saved there? Thus rendering my plan to find out what is on it a failure? If I have to sacrifice the data to get it working properly then I will but I'd rather not have to.

And I've heard of Partitioning software, but feel I would be overwhelmed with my lack of knowledge and screw it up somehow.

 

[crazylegs]

You didn't say anything about keeping the partition or any info previously stored on the drive, you just said you couldn't gain access to the drive!
It could be that the partition is password protected or even have some sort of security software on it to stop people like you gaining access..

 

[EvanDavis]

Wouldn't deleting the partition delete the information saved there? Thus rendering my plan to find out what is on it a failure? If I have to sacrifice the data to get it working properly then I will but I'd rather not have to.

And I've heard of Partitioning software, but feel I would be overwhelmed with my lack of knowledge and screw it up somehow.

Why would you want to see somebody else's data that might be stored on the disk ? Why did somebody even sell a disk that had not been wiped ?

















I smell a fish....

 

[TriplexDread]

I smell a fish....

More like a great white

 

[muckshifter]

Encouraging any unethical practices is not condoned on these forums.

ban pending, thread closed.