SATA to USB not being recognised

[Dave000]

Hi Everyone. I have Windows 10 running on my machine. I had recently come across and purchased a SATA to USB kit over Ebay thinking I can access my age old Seagate Barracuda 80GB Hard drive which I had kept aside while giving away my old desktop. This was around 2010. Manufacturing date on the disk is Oct 2005 so its pretty old but I was really hoping to access all my old data, photos and what not.

Trouble is, while it sounds like the disk is spinning on being powered up, my machine does not recognize the disk. I tried it on another machine with Windows XP but got the same result.

It does have a lot of photos which i would love to see again but I do not see the point in sharing my personal data with someone unknown - so have decided against going to a professional.

I also have come to understand that freezing the HD is a myth and can result in catastrophic damage. And it doesn't make any beeping or buzzing sounds apart from the expected spinning sound which is quite minimal.

Any help in retrieving my data is highly appreciated. Please advice how can I go about now?

 

[ArtPog]

There's a strong likelihood, of course, that you're simply dealing with a defective drive and that's that.
Assuming you're working with a desktop PC can you (or have you?) internally-connected the Seagate directly to a SATA port (connector) on the motherboard?

 

[Dave000]

Thanks for your reply ArtPog. Im using a laptop not a desktop PC.

 

[ArtPog]

Well you also said you had connected the drive in another PC and it couldn't be detected in that PC.

Try re:connecting the Seagate as a USB external HDD to your laptop using your SATA-to-USB adapter cable and use the Seagate SeaTools program to test the health of the drive. Assuming it's found defective, if the data on the drive is absolutely crucial to you the only recourse would be a commercial data recovery service (very expensive).

 

[Dave000]

Well you also said you had connected the drive in another PC and it couldn't be detected in that PC.

Try re:connecting the Seagate as a USB external HDD to your laptop using your SATA-to-USB adapter cable and use the Seagate SeaTools program to test the health of the drive. Assuming it's found defective, if the data on the drive is absolutely crucial to you the only recourse would be a commercial data recovery service (very expensive).

I did just that. The seagate app is not identifying this barracuda hard disk. Its only showing my inbuilt Toshiba Hard disk. Looks like a dead-end. Any other alternative? I dont mind risking the disk. Might as well, considering the slim to none chances of success without a professional recovery recourse.