Problem using my former hard drive as external drive on my new computer

Factual Questions
1

I totalled my computer screen, and since it had some more problems, I bought a new one.

Obviously, I wanted the data of my old computer. So, I bought an external drive case and put the old drive in it. Now, the drive does appear but Windows tells me that I must format it to use it. Obviously I don’t want to do that. So, I click on “cancel” and get the following error message (translated from french, so I hope it will make sense :

F:\ not accessible

Volume doesn’t contain a recognized file system. Check if all required file system pilots are loaded and if the volume isn’t damaged.
I’ve no reason to assume the hard drive is damaged. It certainly worked fine on my previous computer yesterday.

Any idea about what I should do/try?

(For the record, I’m using Windows 8 while the previous computer was on Windows 7. I’ve no clue if this is relevant in any way, but I thought I would mention it.)

Edited to mention too that there were two drives in my previous computer. The one I encased/connected I picked at random.

2

Unfamiliar with W8 and it’s file formats but unless someone else comes up with more pertinent advice, try downloading a version of Linux that supports a live CD.

Ubuntu is the most common one.
Run the live CD (it will not in any way impact on your Widows installation) and attempt to access the eternal drive.

There will be no problems assuming that the drive is not damaged nor the software corrupt.
You can then drag any required files to your new computer.
If this is successful then you can repartition/reformat to NTFS from the live CD - just be sure you are operating on the external drive and not the internal one.

You may need to download a program to burn the CD if you do not already have a suitable one.
Ubuntu has it’s own but you need Ubuntu installed to use it.

3

Looking around, I opened disk management and it tells me about this disk :

File system : RAW
Status : safe

Then it gives the capacity, about 600 Go, according to it 100% free.

4

I don’t get it. How would installing a new operating system not impact Windows?

5

Please ignore any advice to install a Linux OS if you’re not familiar with it. Intimately familiar. Using Linux is not for the faint of heart, the non-hacker.

I see no reason why you can’t read the disk, at least for files (not for OS). You mentioned the old computer had 2 drives. What happens if you try to read the other drive with your new system? And is there any way you can read the drive with another computer? (I’m suspecting incompatibility here, not drive failure.)

And don’t format ANYTHING except as a last resort.

6

you can get that kind of behavior when the drive is damaged or partially damaged.

though first you need to be sure that your external drive enclosure is working and that your procedure in having Windows 8 read the drive is working.

try the other drive from your old computer.

7

Myglaren mentioned nothing about installing a Linux operating system. He suggested using a Linux live CD, which runs — but does not install — directly from the CD/DVD drive. The computer then acts as if from an installed operating system; and one can use either the file manager to copy files from one drive to another, or in more advanced cases once the files are saved, use a disk utility application such as GParted to inspect or recover the injured drive.
Actually, looking at an external drive from an XP system for a friend I got the same ‘RAW’ state message recently. I couldn’t do anything with it. Windows is very particular about the tiniest error. Fortunately it always gives useful and comprehensive error messages to enable quick diagnosis.

  • I totalled my computer screen, and since it had some more problems, I bought a new one.*
    Does that mean it’s a laptop ?

[QUOTE=Musicat]
Using Linux is not for the faint of heart, the non-hacker.
[/QUOTE]

Nag, not really. I have very little understanding other than empiric working out and I find Linux far more simplistic and uncomplicated than Windows. Installation and when things like drives go bad are the only two difficulties where you can get screwed; but much the same applies to Windows.

My last installation of OpenSuse 12.3 took about 20 minutes; and once it’s working it stays that way.

8

Let’s backtrack a bit and establish some basics. Your old disk ran Windows 7. Do you know if it was formatted as GPT or MBR? How many partitions were on the drive? Have you tried looking to see if there’s a G: etc? What were the circumstances of the failure of your old system?

9

You said there were two drives on your old system and you picked one at random to put in the external drive case? Sounds kinda odd. Figure out which one you grabbed.

Do you still have your old system? If so, see if that drive works as a external on your old system.

10

Were both disks working previously, or did the computer just happen to have two disks and you only used one? Is it possible the disk you grabbed hasn’t worked in years, and you just didn’t notice because it wasn’t the boot disk?

There’s no reason the boot disk shouldn’t work if you plug it in as an external (of course it’ll have a lot of wasted space for a pointless Windows install, and you might have to assert control over permissions.)

11

You don’t install it, it runs from the CD.

12

the stating that it is a ‘live cd’ means that your computer boots from this (and not the hard drive) as has been mentioned. it for that one time (or any time that cd is in while booting) runs the operating on the cd and not the hard drive. this can be a solution for some problems.

to use this method your ‘boot order’ in the CMOS has to have the cd/dvd drive be before the hard drive. it may be set this way or you may have to change it. the CMOS settings change your computer at a very basic level and you need to know what you are doing to not cause problems.

i would try a know working drive, atleast the other drive you didn’t pick, in your enclosure first from Windows 8.

13

What kind of enclosure? USB? eSATA?

14

"The one I encased/connected I picked at random. "

Really ? maybe you never used this one.
Maybe the other one will work much better.

15

Well, I tried with the other drive tonight (in another external drive box, so it’s not the box, either) and it’s exactly the same problem. My laptop see the drive (and call if F: ) but wants me to format it, with the same error message if I don’t want to.

To answer some questions :

Yes both the old and the new computer are laptops

I’ve no clue what GPT or MBR even means

There were three “disks” appearing on the previous computer, C, D and E. I had assumed they were partitions of the same drive, but since there were in fact two drives, I assume one had no partition (say, it was c: ) and the other had one (say, it was d: and e: )

The old system didn’t fail. I destroyed the screen by accidentally hiting it (and since I could see a bit on it, I could see the computer was running properly. I just couldn’t see enough to point and click correctly. For instance, I don’t think I could have managed to copy files on an USB key. Not that I even tried). Since the computer had other issues like keys not working anymore and I intended to buy a new one anyway one of these days…

Currently, there’s only a c: and small recovery d: drive on my new computer. When I connect either external drive, it gets called f: (e: being the DVD Rom)

I still have the old system, but…well, I removed the drives, so I’m not sure how I would test them (I assume the computer isn’t going to start from the external drive??).

The previous computer worked perfectly. As I wrote above, it was a laptop, so I didn’t even know there were two drives inside. I assumed I would find only one. I’m assuming that both were used by the computer since it would makes no sense otherwise.

The enclosure is dual use. It happens to be SATA drives (if i’m not mistaken about which is which).

16

What kind of laptop was the old one? Make and model? And these external enclosures attach to the new laptop through USB?

Your old laptop didn’t have full-disk encryption, did it? (E.g. Bitlocker)

17

Have you any chance of plugging the external drive into someone else’s computer to assess compatibility?
If you want to go the Linux option I have a USB dongle with Linux Mint Olivia on it, just installed in my laptop that doesn’t like Ubuntu.
I could post it to you and you can run Linux ‘live’ and transfer files from the external to the internal drive, then if you wished to repartition/reformat the external drive(s) - it will allow you to format to NTFS rather than the Linux file formats.
Once done your laptop should be able to access the external drives as normal.
I use two external drives scavenged from deceased computers and never have any trouble with them.

18

It was an ASUS laptop, model X73S, apparently. And no, I didn’t use any kind of encryption.

The problem is that I don’t even understand what you’re proposing. Assuming that I download Ubuntu, where am I supposed to install it??

19

You don’t install it: you place the Live CD in the CD/DVD drive, or the dongle in a USB slot; then the operating system appears because it is solely running in memory, not as it usually is from a hard disk.
However, if you haven’t come across this, it might be best not to experiment. And please note, I would never ever urge anyone to use a Linux OS who doesn’t already want to try it.

20

Have you considered putting the drives back in the notebook computer, connecting an external monitor and seeing if you can get it to boot? At least then you can copy the files off it. Also, I think it’s a little weird for a notebook system to have dual hard drives. But perhaps they were in some sort of RAID array? That might explain why you can’t read them individually.