Using Old WD Sata Drive after new SEA Sata install

The tech who came to fix my machine replaced the motherboard, which then necessitated a new hard drive. He walked away and left me hanging. Because ALL of my data is on the old drive. I can reload the programs, but some of that data was critical - like my user IDs and other things for work. Anyway, I was able to see (before he replaced the drive) the file structure on the old drive and go in and did see all my files. I have two parts to this question.
#1. Why did the system switch the letters? C: was my boot drive with 990 GB and all my data, and D: was 10GB for my recovery. After he replaced the motherboard, C: was empty and D: was 900GB with all my data, etc. I thought that was very odd and figured only he could have caused that.

#2. I need to get the data off my old drive. I purchased an Eagle external case for the old drive, popped it in and connected everything. My computer does not see it. I'm really frustrated, since this entire issue has already caused me to lose about 4 days of productivity - for two events happening on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm about flipping out. Is there something else I can do to get the data off the drive and copy it over to my new drive?

 

When you say that the Tec ''REPLACED'' the Motherbord was it an Identical one as you had before?? My guess is not thats why he put another hard Drive in. If the NEW hard drive was installed I take it you have put an Operating System on it Win7/Xp ?? This will become your ''C'' drive replacing the 990 Gig as being another Motherboard your 990 will not be recognised on the new motherboard as Master. Your new drive ''C'' will become the ''Master'' and your 990 will become the slave. You say that after booting from the new ''C'' drive your 990 is not recognised, Have you been to Computer Management then Disk Management to see if it is listed there ?? Also have you been to the Bios and is it showing there ??? Can you not connect the 990 in the computer case thus aleviating any USB probs ???

 

I have no clue if the motherboard is identical. This was a "protection" deal. My machine starting spitting back "Imminent Hard Drive" failure messages last October. And the contractor for the company that insured the machine said #1 It was the fan (not). #2 it was the processor (not). three weeks ago I threw a fit - and they said it was the #3 Motherboard. they replaced the motherboard and immediately my hard drive refused to boot. so then #4, they replaced the hard drive. The hard drive I know is not a duplicate. But, they left no documentation and I won't be able to address it until Monday. Before the guy showed up to replace the hard drive, I did, through recovery manager, go in a look at the files. It was like they were flipped (c became D, only it was empty, and the old C became the D drive). I kept asking the tech why it had flipped, but he couldn't answer me. I thought it was very odd. Anyway, doesn't matter. The machine boots.

The problem is - I have to get the data off the old hard drive, which I know is there because I saw it. I went into the bios and the machine is not recognizing the drive as an external drive or any drive. I know I hooked it up correctly.

I don't have a wiring with the machine that allows two hard drives. So, instead of buying a power and hook-up to the board, I decided to just treat the old drive like an external drive, which is what was recommended. However, the USB connection does not seem to be working. Don't know if that's the problem or not - because it doesn't show up at all. Not as anything.

 

Ok .. What is the make and model of the Motherboard?? Download this and it will tell you what it is and read the RED warning before instalation

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4387

Are you confident to Open the case/computer if so you will have more than one sata port conection thus enabling you to connect the 900 drive as Slave as it appears the USB as you said is not functioning, that is another issue that can be sorted later as main priority is to get your 900 accessible. Hopefully you will have another SATA Power connector but you may need a SATA Data lead. There very inexpensive and simple to install. Post back with the motherboard specifications and we will take it from there. P.S. Your 900 drive will only be recognised as 'SLAVE' as the operating system that is on there is configured to the busted motherboard.

 

As an after thought did the 'Techy' give you a disc for the Motherboard as I wonder if you have the 'Chipset' drivers installed although he should have done that for you, this maybe the problem withe the USB ports. If you post the make & Model of the Motherboard we can find them at the manufactures site.

 

Motherboard is a Pegatroncorp Violet6 6.01

I ran Belarc and it gave all kinds of info. Anything else?

 

Ran the Driver software, and it said the following were VERY old (not quite ancient).

NVIDIA nforce System Management Controller
Atheros 802.11 a/b/g/n dualboard wireless network module
USB Mass Storage Device
Realtek High Def Audio

This is sooooo frustrating. I really, really appreciate your help.

 

Yes very difficult to fin I cant seem to locate the board manufacturer Pegatroncorp maybe some other Geek will help us out here. In the meantime did your USB external case have any lights on ?? Aslo can you look in Device Manager and open up your Universal Serial Bus controllers and discover if any warnings ie. exclamation/Cross. marks are there.

 

I am finding a substantial references to this model .. have you given me the correct model as the 6 6 01 just aint there.....

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&lc=en&os=4063&product=4122179&sw_lang=#N94

 

Lots of USBs in the list. None with an exclamation or any other indicator that something is wrong.
Generic USB Hub
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
USB Composite Device
USB Composite Device
USB Composite Device
USB Mass Storage Device
USB Printing Support
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub

That sounds like the motherboard, but my model is P6320F.

Here is what Belarc found:

Board: PEGATRON CORPORATION VIOLET6 6.01
Serial Number: 103411910003615
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 5.13 11/12/2009

 

I can't help you fix the drivers for Windows. One thought is if you are in a hurry to get your data you might want to boot the computer using a Linux CD and see if it will recognize both the internal HD and the external one. If it does that would let you get your data copied from the external to the internal. Then when you have more time you could get back to figuring out why Windows won't see the drive.

Do you have a blank CD or empty flash drive? Puppy Linux would be a small download which could be written to CD or an empty flash drive and then booted to, in order to see if it would see both drives. You would burn the puppy ISO to a blank CD using imgburn's "Write Image File to Disc" option and then with the USB external attached to the computer, boot to the CD.

Once you get to the Puppy desktop there will be icons in the lower left corner for various devices. You internal HD will be sda with a number for each partition. So you may have sda1, sda2 etc. One of them will be your new Windows partition. You will also have sdb and sdc. Either sdb1 or sdc1 should be your old Windows partition with the files you want to copy. If there is no sdc that corresponds to the old files then the external isn't being recognized by Linux either. Basically letter "a" is always your internal HD, letters b,c,d etc. are other devices like CDROMS and USB drives.

 

Motherboard Specifications, M2N78-LA (Violet6)
is this your mainborad??
if it is you need to install the drivers for the chipset
that will give you usb to work properly
if it is that mainboard you have the nvidia geforce 9100 chipset
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
here you can get drivers

 

Don't know exactly if that is my motherboard. I posted below what the information was. That is all that is available. Here is what Belarc says about NVIDIA under Display.

NVIDIA GeForce 9100 [Display adapter]

 

I'll download and install the NVIDIA drivers because there is an update. But I'm not sure what that has to do with the motherboard or system being able to read a drive plugged in via USB.

 

Updating NVIDIA did nothing. So, I'll go through and update each of the drivers identified in the diagnostic (DriverScan). Also, make sure Windows 7 is up to date.

 

I'm still leaning that the chipset will solve the recognition prob but I would go with sach2's guidance if you have the means to burn to disc.

I have now spent several hours trying to locate your Motherboard PEGATRON CORPORATION VIOLET6 6.01 but cant find any reference to it anywhere as well as trying to locate the companies home page which I cant find, something is amiss here. :confused

 

Hi Toke,

I'm pretty sure that the MB is the HP Violet that you linked to earlier. I think the 6.01 is just something Belarc is getting off the firmware. If you know which drivers Carolbpeter should be installing from USB, I would just go with that as her board and point to those drivers. HP likes to come up with their own model numbers for some reason. She said her HP model number was p6320f which uses the same board. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=4120149#N433

I just posted the linux idea because the OP seemed to be in a time crunch for Tues-Wed. Fixing the USB issue in Windows would be the ideal solution.

 

Hi, guys. This is what I get for the downloads from the driver software I downloaded from an earlier post, gave the following update versions:

NVIDIA: update to Ver. 5.1.2600.0208 21-Mar-10
Network Adapters (Atheros) Ver 10.0.0.42 22-Feb-12
Microsoft USB Controllers Ver 6.1.7600.1017 25-Nov-10
USB Mass Storage (Microsoft) 6.1.76.00.30126 26-Oct-10
Realtek 6.0.1.6101 26-Apr-10

When I clicked the new link, the drivers at HP are older (2009).

Should I install the above drivers after I find them?

 

If you are refering to these............

NVIDIA: update to Ver. 5.1.2600.0208 21-Mar-10
Network Adapters (Atheros) Ver 10.0.0.42 22-Feb-12
Microsoft USB Controllers Ver 6.1.7600.1017 25-Nov-10
USB Mass Storage (Microsoft) 6.1.76.00.30126 26-Oct-10
Realtek 6.0.1.6101 26-Apr-10

then yes. To be absolutely sure of the model go here and its a Free DL and install, this will give ALL information you require its a really in depth one ...

http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download

 

Okay - Still not working. But, this morning I plugged in my i-phone to upload photos, and that isn't being recognized either. I tried a USB port on the front of the machine, and one in the hub. So - guessing the drivers for the USB ports are bad?

 

You can try this but I am not sure if it will work for you. Download USBdview and run it in an admin account. Disconnect all USB devices including your hub except for your mouse or keyboard if they are USB. Delete all Vendor Specific devices. Not your mouse and keyboard if USB. Then reboot, and attach the drive or iphone. Does it now recognize it?

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

 

every driver analysis I have tried (4) wants a payment of $30 before it will update my drivers, and I have otherwise been unable to find them. Is this normal?

 

Wow. I am so unbelievably frustrated. I paid for and downloaded Driver Detective. Ran it, and updated the drivers. Then my PC wouldn't boot and I had to restore back.

WITH? I can't believe, first of all, that I had to pay for drivers for hardware that is legally on my machine. Shouldn't the updates be free?

Then, to top it off, they apparently don't work or are wrong, because I wasn't able to boot afterward (I updated the NVIDIA and USB drivers, per the software).

Anyone got any other suggestions? All I want at this point is to have access to the data on my old drive. I need it, and I'm having issues, including loss of production time and school work because of it.

I can drive back out to Microcenter - but the last two trips didn't help.

 

Did you try running USBdview and deleting all of the Vendor Specific items? If you do not have any yellow exclamation marks in your Device Manager, then there is no need to update the drivers. See if the company will give you a refund or call your credit card company and demand a charge back.

 

Yes. Three times. It tells me what I need, but I have to pay for the drivers. Since I've already paid once and it didn't work, I'm resistant to paying again. I work part time, haven't made the April house payment, and I'm behind in my school work. My 20 hr/week job isn't covering all this crap. so, I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place. I'm mostly frustrated and angry with the insurance/tech guys, who I believe screwed this up in the first place. Had they not reconnected the original hard drive incorrectly, I would have at least been able to back it up. However, adding to that the fact that they threw on a new motherboard and hard drive and walked away without making sure everything had the correct drivers - was just inexcusable.

All I know is, I have now, just today, sat here for over 4 hours trying to figure this out. It just can't be that difficult to update drivers on a machine that legally has the hardware.

 

I am also running the HP Tune-up. Have no idea what that will do. Or if it will work. Or if it will find anything and update. My computer has run updates every day since they loaded the new hard drive and mother board, so 7 days I've been doing this. I've never had so much trouble since 1990 when I purchased my first PC.

 

Have you tried Puppy linux to get the files off as sach2 posted? If puppy does not see the drive then you probably have a hardware issue.

Edit: are there any yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager?

http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/data-recovery/recover-files-from-hard-disk.html

 

Puppy saw the drive. However, it saw the recovery partition, not the "D" drive where all my files and programs were. So, when PL booted, it gave me SD1, SD2, SD3 and the DVD drive. 1 & 3 looked like recovery drives, 1 the newer one, and 3 from the old hard drive (now hooked in by a USB cable as an external drive). 2 looked like the new documents/data on the new drive.

What next? I saw the files through recovery manager on the drive. How do I get to them?

 

Puppy should be defining the drives by the third letter.

So sda1, sda2 etc. would be partitions on the internal HD. Since you weren't having a problem with that HD all the partitions should be there. The one that has Windows folder and Program Files folder would be your main OS partition. Are you sure it is not showing?

The external would have a different third letter so something like sdb1 or sdc1 would be the external.

 

No, there was SD3, I now don't know what that is. But here is the stupidity of today's chapter of the adventure.

The external cover I purchased would go on (light, etc.), but apparently no one was home. when I took it back to microcenter and cried to have someone just look at the drive and offered to pay to have it transferred if they could find it ---- joila - the external cover they sold me last week was not working. Something was wrong with the connectors inside. So the tech guy got a new one - and THERE ARE ALL MY FILES.

Eegads. So, he is sure my USB drivers are fine, said to use a different cable for the i-phone, because that's probably bad too.

I'm sorry I wasted everyone's time - but really, the guy who removed my motherboard and hard drive should have pulled my data like I asked him to, instead of walking away and leaving me to upload and reload everything myself.

Thanks guys. You're on my favorites list. (which I now back up weekly)

 

Thanks for letting us know the resolution.

I agree the tech guy should have helped you copy your files over, while he was there. Your motherboard has extra SATA connectors, so even if it the case only holds one HD, he could have made a temporary connection and copied the files. (I'd be suspicious that the case only holds one HD, since the board has connectors for 4 SATA devices. You might take a peek sometime to see if he was telling the truth and that there is only one HD bay. If there is more than one bay you would just need an extra SATA cable to connect a second HD as long as there is an empty power connection.)