Question HDD letter not being read

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Artisanico

Jan 27, 2025
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When I connected up my old IDE HDD the PC could see that there was a storage device there but couldn't read the drive letter. I can see only one possible reason: the drive is getting on twenty years old. I can't afford to take it to a lab; is there any hope for this? TIA.
 
Artisanico said:
When I connected up my old IDE HDD the PC could see that there was a storage device there but couldn't read the drive letter. I can see only one possible reason: the drive is getting on twenty years old. I can't afford to take it to a lab; is there any hope for this? TIA.
Click to expand...
How, exactly, are you connecting this to your current PC?
 
Artisanico said:
When I connected up my old IDE HDD the PC could see that there was a storage device there but couldn't read the drive letter.
Click to expand...
Extremely common dragging and old IDE drive out and current windows looses the drive letter.

If the drive shows up in Disk Management and if it shows no drive letter just right click and assign it one. Drive will than be accessible.

All your doing is giving the drive a letter. DO NOT DO ANY FORMATING.
 
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stonecarver said:
Extremely common dragging and old IDE drive out and current windows looses the drive letter.

If the drive shows up in Disk Management and if it shows no drive letter just right click and assign it one. Drive will than be accessible.

All your doing is giving the drive a letter. DO NOT DO ANY FORMATING.
Click to expand...
OK so the PC - which I connected to my old caddy when I wrote the OP - will be inaccessible for any weeks, as it's being used to recover data. On the advice of members of this forum I have bought a new caddy; my old one is in other usage. (I needed to buy a connector extension for the new caddy to get the IDE connections in place, as it's an old PATA disk.) Now the disk is not being so much as recognised in computer management. I have looked carefully at the (new) USB cable but can't see a problem with it. The disk is buzzing so I know that power is getting through. Between the issue with the drive letter that I mentioned in the OP and now, I have not done anything with my HDD. Can anyone help? TIA
 
SkyNetRising said:
There is no 250GB drive being detected.
Only your OS drive is being detected.

Show, how you have 250GB drive connected. Make photos.
Click to expand...

Photos of the caddy connectors, including the extension cables.
I am just hoping that I haven't bent a pin during the connection of the IDE ribbon, but presumably that would mean I wouldn't be able to push the connector in properly? I don't force anything.
I connected it up first to my laptop and then to a friend's PC -- same result in each case.
I hope this does it, at last https://photos.app.goo.gl/zD1xh9vnRJrjDt1m6
 
Artisanico said:
Photos of the caddy connectors, including the extension cables.
Click to expand...
Show, how you have connected all cables to pc.

Instead of experimenting with external usb adapters,
why don't you use internal IDE controller card instead?

pex2ide.main.jpg


https://www.startech.com/en-eu/card...CL9apyJpL0w-xQOxpE__3nw9r6b_P0dwtBp51sewBzlB7
 
Artisanico said:
I hope this does it, at last https://photos.app.goo.gl/zD1xh9vnRJrjDt1m6
Click to expand...
Can you repost the pictures on imgur.com

It preserves privacy on BOTH parties.


Artisanico said:
I can't because my PC is being used to recover corrupted files, and this will be going continuously on for many months as it's doing 134 Gb at, currently, 0.2 Gb per day.
Click to expand...


About your on going project getting the drive to show, so if I'm understanding it correct you have an ongoing recovery with a different drive and in the background your trying to throw this MIA IDE drive onto an already taxed PC already doing a recovery.

Regardless of getting the drive to show, leave that other recovery alone meaning use a different computer for the IDE drive or wait.
 
stonecarver said:
Can you repost the pictures on imgur.com

It preserves privacy on BOTH parties.





About your on going project getting the drive to show, so if I'm understanding it correct you have an ongoing recovery with a different drive and in the background your trying to throw this MIA IDE drive onto an already taxed PC already doing a recovery.

Regardless of getting the drive to show, leave that other recovery alone meaning use a different computer for the IDE drive or wait.
Click to expand...
No, I am indeed leaving the PC alone and using my laptop to try to see my old HDD. It doesn't read on that, nor on my friend's PC.
 
stonecarver said:
Can you repost the pictures on imgur.com

It preserves privacy on BOTH parties.





About your on going project getting the drive to show, so if I'm understanding it correct you have an ongoing recovery with a different drive and in the background your trying to throw this MIA IDE drive onto an already taxed PC already doing a recovery.

Regardless of getting the drive to show, leave that other recovery alone meaning use a different computer for the IDE drive or wait.
Click to expand...
I have spent all afternoon struggling with imgur.com and then tagbox.com. They won't give me the hyperlink I want. What is wrong with my use of Google Photos? I can report that there was nothing obviously wrong with the caddy connections. This whole business is driving me up the wall - it just goes on and on.
 
stonecarver said:
Imgur is super easy. Drag picture to imgur. there are 3 stacked dots on the right click them than click hit copy link. On Tom's now just right click and paste the link.
Click to expand...
It was easy (after an initial struggle) the first time I used it. Then it became a complete pain. Made the worse by the fact that I have an extremely slow Internet connection. Can't you use the Google Photos link?
 
Being as your using a gutted caddy we have no idea if that caddy is good, bad or just does not like the drive in the first place.

Back when we had only IDE drive you could never be guaranteed the caddy you bought would play nice with say a Maxtor drive worked just fine but you put in an old Seagate and no dice. I have boxes and boxes of them in the old forgotten computer parts pile.

Out of all of the external setups I have the most reliable is the link below. I have relied on it for over 20 years and just works.

Even if the drive is toast but the platter still spins the PC would react to the drive if the caddy is sending information.

The computer would freeze until you unplugged bad drive.

The drive would show up and say it need to be formatted.

If the drive showed up and is greyed out and you clicked on it you would get the forever green bar trying to read the drive.

But that's only if the caddy is sending the information to the PC.

If the drive is just dead you would get nothing. No spinning you can feel and hear from the drive and PC might not even react.

Also I have seen some external hard drives that were sold as a unit not work unless the drive that came with the caddy was in the caddy. Same as the hard drive will not work out of the caddy.

On a side note the Master/ slave/ cable select jumper is still on the IDE drive?



https://www.ebay.com/itm/2753760359...MrC3YKOVbC-4RBZyPdK-Mr1t3bAYgd-RoC-wMQAvD_BwE
 
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