Thinclient hard drive

[John Connor]

My thin client won't boot Windows anymore. It boots BIOS and then a black screen is all I see. It was working prior to a restart. I was wondering, is there a USB reader for a thinclient flash drive? It has several pins and not sure on the connection specification. Would like to retrieve some files off it.

Thanks!

 

[phis6]

Hi,

There are several adapters you can choose to obtain either CompactFlash to USB, CompactFlash to SATA and CompactFlash to IDE cable adapter options you can try to use to retrieve your files from that Thin client drive.

 

[John Connor]

I don't think it's compact flash. It's just a flash drive.

 

[Ketchup]

What model do you have? I know you mentioned it at one time.

 

[John Connor]

Hp t5720

 

[Ketchup]

How about putting something bootable on a flash drive (flavor of Linux) and putting a flash reader software on that

 

[John Connor]

I thought about that. Maybe DSL? The last time I tried to copy files with Linux it wouldn't let me. I do have UBCD4WIN and a USB CD drive. I'll give that a shot.

 

[Steltek]

The flash drive in that client is plugged in on top of a standard 44 pin IDE header.

If you can't get it to boot from your USB CD drive you might be able to use some sort of 44 pin IDE to SATA/USB adapter (the same kind of thing you'd use to adapt a 2.5" IDE laptop hard drive to USB or SATA) to connect it to another machine so you can attempt to access it.

 

[John Connor]

Hmmmm, interesting. I think I do have a 2.5" IDE to USB adapter.

 

[Steltek]

Hmmmm, interesting. I think I do have a 2.5" IDE to USB adapter.

This PDF shows how to convert the thinclient to use a regular hard drive. You can see the IDE header pins in the pictures after the flash unit is removed.

 

[John Connor]

Well, I had to buy a male/male 44 pin gender changer to connect between a USB reader and the flash drive. When I looked at the USB 44 pin connector it was keyed with a blank spot inline with the pin holes. I'm sure you have seen that before? And the gender changer had all 44 pins so I couldn't plug into the USB connector. But then I remembered that I had a 2.5" USB drive connector that went to a HDD. That wasn't keyed. So I was able to connect the flash drive to the HDD connector. The only problem was, what orientation does it go? Without the connector being keyed I wasn't sure. Upside down or right side up? So I tried the most likely orientation and plugged it into the computer and Windows said it could not install the driver. So I changed the orientation of the flash drive and this time Windows was able to install the driver. I went into My Computer to see if I could access the flash drive and it didn't appear. So I checked Computer Management and disk drives and sure enough Windows informed me that the drive needed to be initialized. I clicked okay and got an error which is seen in the picture attached.

So I'm not sure if the flash drive is bad or it's the Jimmy rigged HDD connector I used to attach to the flash drive. Let me know if you want a picture of the HDD connector I used. It has a chip and a couple capacitors.

 

[John Connor]

This PDF shows how to convert the thinclient to use a regular hard drive. You can see the IDE header pins in the pictures after the flash unit is removed.

Do I need to update the BIOS in order to use a 2.5" HDD? I wouldn't think so, but you never know. I think I'll buy one of those PATA SSD drives instead of a platter drive. Although more pricey.

 

[John Connor]

Well, I had to buy a male/male 44 pin gender changer to connect between a USB reader and the flash drive. When I looked at the USB 44 pin connector it was keyed with a blank spot inline with the pin holes. I'm sure you have seen that before? And the gender changer had all 44 pins so I couldn't plug into the USB connector. But then I remembered that I had a 2.5" USB drive connector that went to a HDD. That wasn't keyed. So I was able to connect the flash drive to the HDD connector. The only problem was, what orientation does it go? Without the connector being keyed I wasn't sure. Upside down or right side up? So I tried the most likely orientation and plugged it into the computer and Windows said it could not install the driver. So I changed the orientation of the flash drive and this time Windows was able to install the driver. I went into My Computer to see if I could access the flash drive and it didn't appear. So I checked Computer Management and disk drives and sure enough Windows informed me that the drive needed to be initialized. I clicked okay and got an error which is seen in the picture attached.

So I'm not sure if the flash drive is bad or it's the Jimmy rigged HDD connector I used to attach to the flash drive. Let me know if you want a picture of the HDD connector I used. It has a chip and a couple capacitors.

I found this http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Cyclic-Redundancy-Check-Error

But I can't see the flash drive in My Computer. Could I still run the commands? It wants to initialize and it says Disk 2 for I have two disk currently in the desktop. 0 and 1. Which are C and E, although E is actually F because it's Truecrypt encrypted and so is C, but that remains C as that is the system drive.

So what would the drive letter of Disk 2 be? All I can come up with is drive G. If I can't initialize I can't get a drive letter and that is due to the CRC error which I need to fix and that requires a drive letter! LOL


Edit- I ran the commands and it couldn't find the drive. The problem lies in the fact the drive isn't initialized. And when I try to initialize I get that CRC error pop up.

 

[John Connor]

Well, I tried data recovery software at no joy. I have did some research and many others have had the same problem with HDDs and it looks like the flash drive is FUBAR. I just wanted my Teamspeak server off it, but it looks like I'll have to create a new one. PITA!!!