So I have a couple of laptops around that don't work anymore. I'm trying to hook up the HDD via a IDE to USB 2 connector I got off on newegg. The drives are identified, but when I try to access them thru explorer, I can't get into them and the system hangs until I close the not responding window.

Does anyone know where to start on this? Software? I've looked at google, but the answers are so wide and varied I don't know where to start.

12/9/2006 11:50:04 AM

I'm gonna sing the doom song now! Doom doom do-doom doom do-doom doom doom! Doom doom doom! Doom! Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom! Doom doom dooooom! Dooom! Doom do-doom doom do-doom doom do-do-doom doom! Doom doom doom!

12/9/2006 12:18:37 PM

I just purchased the same adapter for the same reason. I hope when it gets here I have better success.

12/10/2006 8:49:00 AM

actually in all irony I just directed a friend to purchase what I imagine is the same adapter (16.99 before shipping, right?), so hopefully it's not an issue with teh adapter

12/10/2006 9:05:10 AM

yeah, that's the one

it works fine...the hard drive gets powered, spins up and one of the two actually appears in explorer under mycomputer...just when I try to open it it hangs on me

12/10/2006 6:20:34 PM

maybe corrupt file system?

i have better success using knoppix boot cd and mounting ntfs or fat partitions than i do when trying to read slightly messed up ones in windows

12/10/2006 6:57:59 PM

My laptop HDD screwed up a little over a week ago. Luckily, I already had a new computer on order. Unluckily, I had 4 years worth of E-Mail, photos, documents, and home video on that drive that I was unable to transfer. I ordered a 2.5" enclosure several days ago, and some drive recovery software that I HOPE will do the trick. The directory information on the drive is damaged, but I know that the files are still there. All 14 million of them. Seems to be a lot of this going around.

12/10/2006 7:35:14 PM

any insight on the whole knoppix booting? i am absolutely clueless when it comes to linux. i did a look and it seems like it might work, especially if I can get the drive recognized thru the usb port (my computer is crammed in a MC box and such a pain to connect drives

12/10/2006 9:02:23 PM

Are you looking under My Computer/Windows Explorer or Disk Management in Windows? Windows XP sucks when it comes to mapping new USB drives of any sort intelligently. It will often try to map it to a drive letter already in use. Check to see if the drive is showing up in Disk Management. If it is, tell us what filesystem is being reported on the drive. If none appears, more detailed post later...

12/10/2006 10:38:43 PM

I'll look into it when I get home tonight and let you know what I see

12/11/2006 8:56:50 AM

I had a similar issue. It was reading the drives but not showing up in "My Computer" but if I opened up a command prompt I could acccess it by trying different drive letters till I found the right one.

12/11/2006 9:32:59 AM

plug in usb thing, then boot knoppix

my guess is that it will auto mount it, then browse to it, its worth a try

12/11/2006 2:39:14 PM