d Cannot access old laptop hard drive/files through external hard drive enclosure/hookup

[aakarshan]

My old windows (HP) laptop stopped working, so I have removed the hard drive and set it up with a hard drive case with USB attachment. From what I can tell, the hard drive is correctly installed in the case. However, when I hook it up to my newer PC Windows, I can not use the hard drive with My Computer.
I can see it labeled as H Drive but it is asking for a format.
But after format i will lose my all files.

I am a total rookie with these things, so I'm asking if anyone knows what is going on here and if there is some other back-end way I can grab my files off of the old laptop hard drive. As I mentioned, I can see it but just not where I should be able to, nor can I access it in any way.

I'm curious if there is some sort of encryption on the hard drive from my old computer, or if there is something else I am doing incorrectly. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[lucas_7_94]

I think you need to use something like Parted Magic, maybe it can read the HDD.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, aakarshan.

Usually when using a drive with a Windows installation from another computer, in order to access it sometime you need to take ownership of the drive. However, this should happen when you click on it and you shouldn't be getting the message that you need to format it. So in this case you should proceed with the basic troubleshooting steps with a non responsive drive, on which you have data which you need to recover:
1. Try connecting the drive internally via a standard SATA connection.
2. Try the drive with a different computer.
3. Try accessing the HDD via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD (this is basically a freeware, bootable, portable version of Linux), to see if that OS (operating system) is able to recognize the drive properly and let you backup your files to a different one.
4. Try data recovery software: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html & http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm
5. This is the last case scenario - if all else fails and your data is really important to you, you could try your luck with a data recovery company.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD