hi guys, i have a problem. my laptop currently has a seagate 2.5" 500gb hard drive (model #st9500420as). i wana upgrade to an ssd. so i took the seagate out and tried to convert it to an external usb hard drive. but when i plugged the drive into usb, windows saw it as an unprepared hard drive (unallocated), and told me to format it before i could use it. (i tried it on laptop, desktop, xp and window7. same result.)
i first thought i might have accidentally damaged the drive on the way or the usb enclosure is not working properly. because i have converted many hard drives (ide, sata, 2.5", 3.5") to external before, all with data, some with os installed, but never had to format before i can use them. they were all just plug n play.
so i put the drive back into my laptop. it worked just fine as before. all data still intact. then i took it out again and tried it with two other different usb enclosures. but still no go. so i thought it might be because the usb enclosure did not supply enough power to the drive (these 2.5" usb enclosures don't have external power supply). so i tried it with a stand alone ide/sata to usb converter with power supply. but all my computers still see it as a raw drive.
is there anyway to work around with this problem? i really want to keep the data in this drive. and i don't wana go thru the backup-format-restore process. it's just too time consuming. thanks in advance for any suggestion
i first thought i might have accidentally damaged the drive on the way or the usb enclosure is not working properly. because i have converted many hard drives (ide, sata, 2.5", 3.5") to external before, all with data, some with os installed, but never had to format before i can use them. they were all just plug n play.
so i put the drive back into my laptop. it worked just fine as before. all data still intact. then i took it out again and tried it with two other different usb enclosures. but still no go. so i thought it might be because the usb enclosure did not supply enough power to the drive (these 2.5" usb enclosures don't have external power supply). so i tried it with a stand alone ide/sata to usb converter with power supply. but all my computers still see it as a raw drive.
is there anyway to work around with this problem? i really want to keep the data in this drive. and i don't wana go thru the backup-format-restore process. it's just too time consuming. thanks in advance for any suggestion
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