Member Avatar for shedpack

Hello, I backed up 2 computers onto a simplesave HP md1000h. After 2 years i have re-connected the hard drive and nothing happens - no light, no running sound. I dismantled the unit and removed the circuit board from the hard drive. Using a USB to SATA? cable I connected just the hard drive to my computer. I can hear it running but it doesnt show in my computer. If I go to computer management it appear as

Disk 5
Unknown
931.51GB
Not Initialized

I need data from the drive.

Can anyone help?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by shedpack

Dani AI

Generated

Quick expert summary and safe next steps (for , and following ’s disk visibility check)

The drive spinning but not exposing volumes to Explorer while Windows shows the device but won’t mount partitions means the disk’s partition table or filesystem metadata is likely corrupted — the data is probably still on the platters unless the drive is mechanically failing. Do not initialize, create partitions, or run CHKDSK: those actions write to the disk and can make recovery much harder or impossible.

Suggested workflow (preserve — then recover)

  1. Stop further write attempts. Leave the drive connected only in read mode if possible (hardware write-blocker ideal).

  2. Do a non‑destructive health check (SMART) to see if the drive has many reallocated/bad sectors. Example (Linux):

    sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdX

  3. Make a sector‑by‑sector image to a separate healthy drive — do recovery work on the image, never the original. On Linux use GNU ddrescue (log file lets you resume and avoid repeated stress on bad areas):

    sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /path/to/image.dd /path/to/image.log

    On Windows, use a read‑only imager such as FTK Imager or a raw‑copy tool that won’t write to source. If imaging stalls or shows many read errors, stop and consider a pro.

  4. Work on the image: run TestDisk to try to restore the partition table; if that fails, run file‑carving tools (PhotoRec) or commercial recovery software (R‑Studio, GetDataBack) against the image. PhotoRec recovers file contents but may not preserve filenames or folder structure.

Other quick checks that can help (non‑destructive): try a different USB‑SATA adapter or connect the drive to an internal SATA port on a desktop to rule out a bad USB bridge. If the drive shows clicking, fails to spin, or imaging repeatedly fails, stop and contact a reputable data recovery lab — mechanical failures need professional, clean‑room repair.

This avoids destructive steps and gives the best chance of recovering the original data.

Member Avatar for 3knur8

Sounds like the drive failed. If you go to the command promt and type "diskpart", enter, then "list disk". See if it picks it up there.

Member Avatar for shedpack

I've done that and it does show up - weirdly as Disk 0 and Disk 5 - it says online and 931GB.

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