Hi,

This is my first post in the forum as I find myself in some trouble with a Toshiba HDD. The problem goes like this:

My old laptop isn't working anymore, but the HDD is ok. I got a new laptop and a friend lent me a case to use regular HDD as external ones (I excuse myself for my primitive vocabulary in the topic, I'm a total noob), so as to be able to transfer files (mostly work and media files). The thing is my laptop won't recognize it and asks for a format. I believe this is because there is only one partition in this HDD (where the OS Windows 7 is installed) and thus my new laptop cannot recognize the HDD as a regular external HDD.

I kinda know my problem is a bit silly, but which are my solutions in order to recover my data? What do I need (hardware or software) so as to make the HDD readable for any laptop? I'm thankful for your answers and hope you have a great day!

Alvaro

I don't think it's necessary to give any specs related to my HDD or my old or new laptop, but if it is required I'll post that later.
Thanks again!

Your problem may or may not be silly. That is yet to be seen. But either way, if you don't know something, then you should ask. That is not silly!

As for the partitioning, it doesn't matter a whole lot what it is partitioned as. If it is a windows partition or partitions, win7 should pick it up.
There could be password on it, or the HDD might in fact have an issue.


Wrong, as many details as you can give first up will save a day or two of forum tennis while we try and "see" what you have got there.

Hello,

you can try
1. connect drive to another computer and check if you will be able to transfer files
2. it could be, that disk was password protected in your old laptop
3. something is wrong with old HDD or with external enclosure.

If someone of your firends can lend you another enclosure try with that one

Thanks to both of you for your fast answers!

To begin I'll add the specs:

Old Laptop

- Toshiba Satellite L645D - SP4002L (Windows 7 on it)

HDD (Not the one that came with the Toshiba, I had to replace it once)

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB
WD3200BPVT-22ZESTO SATA

(I believe those are the important specs)

New Laptop:

- Acer Aspire E1-572 (Windows 8 )

I already tried to connect it to a laptop with Windows 7 but it still requires formatting. This said the problem must be the enclosure or the HDD itself right? I never knew about the password protection, I didn't set any when I used it in my Toshiba so as far as I know ther isn't, but I might be wrong again.

I'll try and find another enclosure to give it another try! Thanks again

Update:

The enclosure isn't the problem, I put another HDD in it and it all went ok.

It could be an issue of of 2:

1) Your hdd is defect and lost the partition information

2) your hdd is ok, but it lost the (correct) partition information

That the drive is recognised and Windows suggests to format
the drive prooves, that it is detected from bios and the Windows.

A quick test about the status would be to install a progame like
hddsentinel on a different pc/laptop with its own hdd.

When you have econnected the hdd with its external usb box to this
pc or laptop where you have installed that programe, you can see the
SMART status a few seconds after booting up Windows.

It will report issues / problems of all hdd if there are any.

If you see bad sectors - then you should contact a pro.
If the hdd is ok, then you need assistance to get data out of defect
partition. Dont write anything to that hdd - you might loose all data !

+++

One more possibility: unless you encloser is powered externally some drives may use too much power for usb- two usb jacks on Y cable may then be needed to have enough power to fully run drive and would match your symtom.