SATA Drive not showing up.

[ikeeplosingmylogin]

I am running an HP PAvilion a 620n, running Win XP Pro, and have a Hitachi Deskstar 80GB SATA drive. My previous pc mobo died, and I am simply trying to access this drive to get some files off of it. It will not show up when connected to the mobo connector. I also tried plugging it into an external USB case, as I get the device detected icon and audio, but it never shows up in My Computer, nor in Disk Management. It was working until I unplugged it yesterday, so I am working under the assumption that it is physically ok. I have read that there are some difficulties with SATA on some set ups. Any info anyone can provide would be much appreciated.

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Harvey
Senior AnandTech Moderator

 

[phaxmohdem]

I'd say try it on another computer... should be easy with the USB enclosure. In my experience this either comes down to a SATA controller driver issue, or a bad hard drive...

 

[ikeeplosingmylogin]

Thanks. So, I'm not missing something. Sata IS a bit quirky right?

It's only a 60GB drive so once my files are off it won't bother me too much to let it ride off into the sunset

 

[phaxmohdem]

The problem that arises is that Windows XP is about 9 years old at this point, and to my knowledge pre-dates SATA hard drives. Newer versions of Linux I've played around with support SATA natively and have never given me trouble at all. My Vista rig also had much less trouble working with SATA drives.

However... the USB enclosure should eliminate those sort of issues in XP I'd think.

 

[ikeeplosingmylogin]

That's what I thought. in regards to the enclosure. Even though it is a sata to usb enclosure, does that completely render the sata fact inert. Or could it still factor in to it not working. Even if it was not formatted correctly or such( which should not be the case, I was running a dual boot with XP Pro NTFS and Ubuntu) it should still show up in my disk management, correct? My last pc had no trouble accessing it, but it was a bit of a "higher end" mobo, this rig is a basic from the store sorta HP. I'm definitely ok with it not working with my pc long term, I just need to get some stuff off of it. I looked in the bios and don't see anything special regarding SATA or anything like. Almost seems like the prongs are on the board but not actually "live."

 

[ikeeplosingmylogin]

So, I am at it again. I can't seem to make it appear. My MOBO has two sata connectors, but it seems that there is no info on the HP site regarding SATA, seems like they maybe have it on the board, but maybe it's not active, or not working right. I did run a dual boot with Ubuntu and XP Pro. Could the linux bootloader possibly be the reason it is not showing up? Now I'm just grabbing at straws, but I just need to get some important files off of it.
Thanks,

 

[Old Hippie]

If the drive is not being seen in the BIOS, you're pretty much outta luck.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

what kind of power connector does the drive use?