External Hard Drive not working on Vista

A

Argentus

Member
I have a WD 3,5 Hard drive and I bought I case so I could make it external.

However, when I connect it to my laptop, running on Vista Home Premium x64 SP2 it does not work.

The drive is seen by Vista (it shows up in the Disk Management section in Computer Management) but it does not show up in
My Computer. In Disk Management it appears Disk 1, Dynamic, Invalid, with a red downwards arrow .


As I have all my info there a soluyion that requires a format is not an option.

What can I do to make the drive accesible on my laptop?

Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

Try the following. In Disk Managment, right click on where it says Disk1 and Initialize. Then right click on the right side (next to where it says Disk1) and say Format (best in NTFS) and assign a drive letter. See whether that works.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
oh, and then only two options I see when I right click in DISK 1 is "Converto to Basic Disk" and "Properties". The first one will delete my info (or so it says) and the second one only provides basi information.
 

My Computer

System One

Oh I see. I thought it was a brand new disk. Then my proposal will not work. How did you write the info on the disk - which OS?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Yeah, that's what I thought. Ultimate supports dynamic disks but Home Premium does not. If you want to use the disk with Home Premium, you will have to save the data on an Ultimate system and then convert the disk to a basic disk. Any other way will destroy your data.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Nope, the "alternative" is to upgrade that computer to Ultimate.

I wonder if a Live Linux distro would see the disk - and enable copying to the current Vista disk. Then you could move the data to the other disk, make this disk into a basic disk, then copy the data back to it.
 

My Computer

System One

I think XP Professional can deal with dynamic disks. If you have an XP around, just try it.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Argentus,

Try to get the Linux live cd and copy all your data from the disk like Usasma mentioned. You can also download the bootable Paragon Rescue Kit Express disc and boot the system from it and copy all your files, too.
Hope it helps. Cheers...

Martee
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway P7805u FX
    CPU
    Intel Core2Duo T9600 2.80GHz 1066MHz FSB
    Motherboard
    Intel PM45
    Memory
    8GB 1066MHz DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB DDR3
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG 17" WUXGA TFT
    Screen Resolution
    1920x 1200
    Hard Drives
    WD 2x500GB
    Case
    notebook
    Other Info
    BT/BD
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