Hard Disk Not Found (Again, Different Disk)

My recently acquired Seagate Momentus 500GB HDD (ST9500420AS) is not recognised. I would like to test it, and to facilitate this I am connecting this internal 2.5" HDD to a USB port on my Presario via a SATA/PATA -> USB adapter. Power is from an external PSU [240V -> 12V/5V]. I assume that the 12V pins are not connected inside the 2.5" HDD. This adapter is known to work for other HDDs.

With the Momentus, when I first connected it, I got the usual messages about the USB port, new device detected, device ST9500420AS recognised, your device is installed and ready to use, etc (I have missed some), but on looking in 'My Computer' and 'Disk Management' it did not not show up. Looking in 'Device Manager', I saw that it recognised a USB Mass Storage device, and its location was an ATA/ATAPI bridge. Under Remove Devices, it showed that I had a Mass Storage device attached (when a 'good' disk is used, it shows what letter has been allocated also). OK. So I ejected the disk, powered down and left it for 5 minutes. I connected everything up again, got the usual message about USB 2 being faster, and waited a bit. That was the only message I got. The Windows tools that I used before showed the same things as previously. I tried Refresh and Scan Disks in Disk Management (how long is this supposed to take ?). I then repeated the process with the same results.

I have noticed just this week that when I have an external disk set up using the SATA/PATA -> USB adapter, on opening Windows Explorer it responds with a 'Windows needs to close this program' message, and when I click ok, the screen turns completely orange above the task bar and refreshes the icons, and the programs shown as open on the task bar disappear, then more slowly than the screen refreshes, reappear one at a time. If I open Windows Explorer again, there is no problem. This happens if the disk connected works or I am having difficulties.

How do I get my PC to recognise this disk ? Is it defunct ?

Dumb_Question
16.November.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

 

Following the instructions in one of Satrow's posts (thank you) [My Computer > C: {Right click} > Properties > Hardware Tab > Lists storage devices attached to PC] my PC lists the devices including the new hard disk and correctly identifies the Model of the disk attached to the USB port as an
ST9500420AS, so it's there alright.

Dumb_Question
17.November.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot

 

Can you simply install it through it's SATA normal configuration and unplug all other hard drives? Try to boot to the drive with your WinXP cd in like you were going to install WinXP on it. Assuming you can format it, it should be good.

In your test configuration, how does it show up in the bios? Seagate has bootable tools to check their hard drives, may be worth a shot.

 

If you download "seatools" from Adaptec or Seagate it will test all your hard drives, good program I use it quite alot.

 

Thank you for your responses, guys.

Seatools for DOS which contains the utilities for formatting external drives - which I effective have - needs a bootable disk, which I haven't got around to making. Unless I can burn an ISO image to a CD of the XP bootable version ? (which the idea has just entered my head I might be able to do), I'll have to download a CD burner. I've then got to see if I can boot my PC from CD or even if my XP/CD still works...it's logistically complex because I don't think my XP system will boot from CD...but I can always try, and figure out a way. I have downloaded SeaTools for windows and that kind of works. When I tested the momentus out last week, SeaTools recognized it, it passed the short tests, but failed the Long Generic, reporting every sector including sector 0 was bad ?? (0-199), and it couldn't fix any. It's an OEM disk, and still under some kind of warranty, but I don't what that covers.

I haven't had the equipment free to do anything more with the momentus - my STA/PATA -> USB adapter has been in constant use.

Thanks Jizzlobber for reminding me to buy a copy or two of Windows XP, I am without any form of CD or installation ability for XP because it came pre-installed. I haven't looked in BIOS, quite honestly, I don't like booting my Presario.

Dumb_Question
23.November.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot