Trying to recover data. Drive Found but not allocated

imsi

Kicked my laptop over and it would no longer charge so I am trying to get the data from it.
I'm using a usb to sata/ide cable to try to read it on my desktop but no drive letter is showing.
The cable works fine with an old 3.5" disk
I've been into Disk Management and the drive shows but has a "no entry sign" and is shown as "not Initialised" and "unallocated"
Thats about as far as I can get. Any suggestions?
Rob

Laptop is Dell Inspiron 1300, Desktop is Dell Dimension 3000
Both using Windows XP sp3

Hammyman

The impact could have damaged the drive.

imsi

Thanks. I should have mentioned that the laptop continued to work ok until the battery ran out. Does your comment still apply?

elvch01

Have you tried to format it and then assign a drive letter to it

tronator

imsi wrote: »

... I am trying to get the data from it.

elvch01 wrote: »

Have you tried to format it and then assign a drive letter to it

DON'T DO THIS!!!

Have you tried it with a Ubuntu LiveCD?

You also said that the cable worked with a 3.5" drive. Do you have a adapter to 2.5"? Just asking in case...

Maybe the adapter is broken.

imsi

tronator wrote: »

Have you tried it with a Ubuntu LiveCD?

No. I don't know what this is I'll investigate

You also said that the cable worked with a 3.5" drive. Do you have a adapter to 2.5"? Just asking in case...

Maybe the adapter is broken.

The USB cable/adaptor is 2 sided so it is possible that the 2.5" side is broken.
There were 2 pins on the drive not entering the adapter though. Is this nornal?

tronator

imsi wrote: »

No. I don't know what this is I'll investigate

A Ubuntu LiveCD is a Linux (Ubuntu) which you can boot from CD without making any changes to your hard disk. This way you might be able to access the 2.5" hard disk, in case your Windows has a problem with it.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

imsi wrote: »

The USB cable/adaptor is 2 sided so it is possible that the 2.5" side is broken.
There were 2 pins on the drive not entering the adapter though. Is this nornal?

This doesn't sound normal. There are four pins separated from the other 44 to define master or slave. All 44 pins should be inside the adapter.

http://www0.more-solutions.co.uk/support/hardrives.html

elvch01

tronator wrote: »

DON'T DO THIS!!!

Have you tried it with a Ubuntu LiveCD?

You also said that the cable worked with a 3.5" drive. Do you have a adapter to 2.5"? Just asking in case...

Maybe the adapter is broken.

Oops -my aplogies for not reading the original post thoroughly enough - sounds like a cabling issue from what tronator and the OP are saying. I shall hang my head in shame & bow out of this one in case I embarass myself further

minchinwords

I had one of these adaptors and the 2.5 drive connector did not work. Other problems may be cuased buy the lack of power allocated to that USB socket, try it on another machine.
bought a 2.5 usb drive caddy they are cheap and problem solved. this one had 2 USB plugs to fix any power problems