USB hdd detected but not working

[traumajohn]

Hi,
I have a Western Digital hdd that I put in to a cradle to back up my data
via usb. I backed up and had to reinstall windows due to a virus. After the
reinstall the pc shows the drive as a usb connected device and in windows
hardware manager shows it as enabled and working. I look for it in the my
computer window and I don't see it. I look in the computer management and it
shows it as an unallocated device with 114gigs available. It is a 120 gig
drive. I really need your help again I have my files from the hospital I work
at it and can't see the drive let alone the important files
Thanks,
John

 

[JS]

I hope this is your PC at work and not your
home PC. Ever hear of HIPPA.

 

[JohnO]

I hope this is your PC at work and not your
home PC. Ever hear of HIPPA.

HIPAA is irrelevant unless John said he was sharing this data on usenet or
something.

John...can you try the drive on another computer?

-John O

 

[DL]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act

 

[traumajohn]

Hi and thank you both. First off, I am very well versed in the HIPPA laws and
regulations. I am a supervisor in a very busy hospital. The hospital data
that I referred to are PI projects not patient identifiers, files or private
info. I will try the second pc tonight and get back. Thanks John for the
suggestion and thanks for the HIPPA warning JS.
John

 

[traumajohn]

Oh whatever, read my last post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act

 

[LVTravel]

HIPAA is irrelevant unless John said he was sharing this data on usenet or
something.

John...can you try the drive on another computer?

-John O

You are absolutely incorrect about HIPAA not being relevant. It is totally
relevant if the person has any patient identifiable data (Electronic
Protected Health Information) on the hard drive either at work or at home.
If at home the OP is probably totally in violation of the security aspects
of HIPAA. See the link that DL posted and scroll down to the Security Rule
section and look at the Physical and Technical Safeguards sections. If
someone has transported patient identifiable data outside the hospital they
had better obtain permission first and then have it encrypted appropriately.

My wife works within a health care system and is directly involved with
HIPAA. Her computer is password protected and she is required to change her
password every week. When something happens to the system and she can't
log-on and has to have the IT guys come up to fix it, she has to be there to
ensure they don't go places they aren't allowed. Prior to HIPAA, when her
system broke, I normally was called to fix it instead of the in-house IT
because I fixed it correctly the first time....

 

[JS]

You're welcome.

John's suggestion is the first thing to try.

Not to be meanie but I was the chief database admin for a
system of hospitals, clinics, etc., which included
Medical records, Patient billing, Finance, Payroll, HR and more.
So I'm sensitive to such issues.

 

[Anna]

Hi,
I have a Western Digital hdd that I put in to a cradle to back up my data
via usb. I backed up and had to reinstall windows due to a virus. After
the
reinstall the pc shows the drive as a usb connected device and in windows
hardware manager shows it as enabled and working. I look for it in the my
computer window and I don't see it. I look in the computer management and
it
shows it as an unallocated device with 114gigs available. It is a 120 gig
drive. I really need your help again I have my files from the hospital I
work
at it and can't see the drive let alone the important files
Thanks,
John

John:
The fact that Disk Management indicates the contents of the HDD as
"Unallocated" (disk space) is ominous.

Assuming you've already connected the USB external HDD (I'm assuming that's
what it is since you refer to your putting a WD HDD "in to a cradle") to a
different PC and Disk Management also shows the "Unallocated" notation, try
this...

Remove the HDD from its enclosure and install it in a PC as a secondary HDD.
(I'm again assuming you're working with or have access to a desktop PC). See
if you can access its contents through that means. Hopefully Disk Management
will indicate "Healthy (Active)" contents reflecting the GB disk-capacity of
the HDD. If it does and no drive letter assignment to the HDD is shown, then
right-click on the box containing the "Healthy" notation and select the
"Change drive letter..." item from the sub-menu that opens and see if you
can assign a drive letter. If all goes well you'll be able to access the
HDD's contents that way. Be sure to copy the data to some removable media,
e.g., CD, DVD, another USBEHD, etc.

It would also be wise to check out the HDD with a diagnostic utility that
you can download from WD.
see...http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3

But again, the fact that DM indicates an "Unallocated" situation re the
contents of that HDD (although it's an advertised 120 GB HDD, the disk
capacity in binary terms that the OS reflects is considerably less, usually
about 112 GB although you mentioned 114 GB) is not a good omen. If that be
the final situation you can try one of the commercial "data recovery
programs", a multitude of which are available through online
vendors/developers and hope to recover data through one of those programs.
But it's a crapshoot at best.

Since from your description of the data on that HDD that it's
"mission-critical" data, you may have to consider if all else fails of
engaging a data recovery service that manually will attempt to recover the
data. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this is an extremely expensive
proposition that can easily get into the four-figure cost range. Hopefully
it won't come to that.

It would be best at this point, notwithstanding my suggestions above, that
you first clone the contents of that problem drive to another HDD through a
disk-cloning program. But I have the uneasy feeling you do not have such a
program and probably are uninterested in going that route at this point. But
in the kind of situation you're confronted with it's always best to do as
little manipulation of the original disk as possible. If you start running
this or that software program or disk utility you run the risk of further
corrupting the contents of the disk and making recovery of the data even
harder, if not impossible. That's why it's always wise to have a clone of
the "present" problem HDD and work with it.
Anna

 

[Ian D]

Hi,
I have a Western Digital hdd that I put in to a cradle to back up my data
via usb. I backed up and had to reinstall windows due to a virus. After
the
reinstall the pc shows the drive as a usb connected device and in windows
hardware manager shows it as enabled and working. I look for it in the my
computer window and I don't see it. I look in the computer management and
it
shows it as an unallocated device with 114gigs available. It is a 120 gig
drive. I really need your help again I have my files from the hospital I
work
at it and can't see the drive let alone the important files
Thanks,
John

Does Disk Manager show the drive as healthy, and did you try
assigning a drive letter? Also, in DM properties, does it show as
NTFS and not RAW? Even if the drive shows as unallocated
in the pie chart, the USB enclosure may be at fault. If it still acts
the same with the USB enclosure attached to another PC, I
would remove the drive from the enclosure and try it directly
in a PC. You didn't say if the drive was IDE or SATA, but
it is a lot easier to temporarily connect a SATA drive to
another machine.

 

[traumajohn]

Hi, I tried the drive and the cradle on my laptop and had the same problem.
It detects it as a usb device and show it in Device manager active and
enabled but when I look into disk management I see it says unallocated. I can
not assign a drive letter and it doesn't say healthy just unallocated. I will
try to plug direct into my pc tonight and check.
Thanks,
JOhn

 

[Paul]

Hi, I tried the drive and the cradle on my laptop and had the same problem.
It detects it as a usb device and show it in Device manager active and
enabled but when I look into disk management I see it says unallocated. I can
not assign a drive letter and it doesn't say healthy just unallocated. I will
try to plug direct into my pc tonight and check.
Thanks,
JOhn

There is an example of a tool here, which attempts to recognize partitions
and repair the partition table. This particular web page, is giving a walk
through, of all the scenarios the tool might be able to fix. You don't go
through all that nonsense, if the thing isn't badly damaged.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

For important data, data recovery requires some care. My procedure consists
of trying to back up the device, sector by sector, if possible first. Then,
if something goes wrong, there is still something to work with. (For that,
you can boot a Linux LiveCD and use the "dd" command, and there is also
a Windows port of dd available. What I don't know, is what happens if
bad sectors are detected during the transfer. I would not expect
exceptions to be handled well by a command like that.)

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

(From a DOS prompt - dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

This will copy drive hda to drive hdb. The naming convention is not the
same as "drive letters" or other things you're familiar with in Windows.
Using "dd --list" from the DOS prompt, will give the names of all
connected devices. Read the chrysocome web page for more information
about how the naming works. Real care must be used with this command,
as you can easily erase the wrong disk by accident when using it.)

The TestDisk tool is an "in-place" tool. It attempts to correct structures
directly on the affected disk. Such a method is not without risks. Other
recovery tools are "data scavengers". They try to recognize files on the
disk, rather than attempting a repair. There is an unending pile of $39.95
utilities of that sort. A potential advantage of that approach, is that
it may not necessarily attempt any write operations to the affected
disk.

For a scavenger, you should have enough disk space available
on another physical device, to hold the results of the scavenge. And
the files may not be in very good shape. A tool I used to use, names
the files file0001, file0002, and so on, so you have no idea what each
one contains, and some can contain fragments of files. You could conceivably
have more output files from a tool like that, than there were files on the
originating disk.

Another consideration, is the mechanical health of the disk itself.
In some cases, there are very few "start cycles" left in the disk, before
it becomes toast (and material for a real data recovery company). For example,
I had a disk which was showing signs of trouble. I was tired, so I decided
to go to bed, rather that fight with the thing. I turned on the disk the
next day, and it was inaccessible. Depending on the displayed symptoms,
the disk may not have much life left in it. In those cases, it is important
to plan a course of action which will result in the least stress to the
disk.

If you're not comfortable with recovery yourself, take the drive
to your IT staff and see what they can do for you.

Paul