Prev: Question about LGA 775 cooler backplate adhesive tape.
Next: Power Supply fan stopped blowing!
From: Jerry West on 14 Jan 2010 16:16
I pulled a HD from a failed Windows Server 2000 machine today. Wanting to
access the contents of the drive I hooked it up to a USB 2.0 to IDE adapter
and plugged it into my USB port. When the drive came up and I tried to
access it I was told it was not accessible. I've never had this issue before
with a drive so I assume it is because it is the boot drive of a server?
Perhaps it is encrypted in some way? My question is: Is the only way to
access this drive now to reformat it thereby losing the contents?

JW

From: Bryce on 14 Jan 2010 16:39
Jerry West wrote:

> I pulled a HD from a failed Windows Server 2000 machine
> today. Wanting to access the contents of the drive I
> hooked it up to a USB 2.0 to IDE adapter and plugged it
> into my USB port. When the drive came up and I tried to
> access it I was told it was not accessible. I've never had
> this issue before with a drive so I assume it is because
> it is the boot drive of a server? Perhaps it is encrypted
> in some way? My question is: Is the only way to access
> this drive now to reformat it thereby losing the contents?
>
> JW

I suppose we should not rule out the possibility that a hard
drive taken from a failed server might be dead.

I don't know why a server's boot drive would need encryption
any more than a data disk, but I suppose it doesn't hurt as
long as the performance hit is tolerable. If your disk is
indeed encrypted, the game is over.

You didn't say what o/s you are using to attempt to read it.
I'll guess some flavor of windows. Why not download a linux
live-cd and try that? Puppy linux runs completely from ram
and can read (and write) ntfs files.

Bryce
From: Paul on 14 Jan 2010 17:07
Jerry West wrote:
> I pulled a HD from a failed Windows Server 2000 machine today. Wanting
> to access the contents of the drive I hooked it up to a USB 2.0 to IDE
> adapter and plugged it into my USB port. When the drive came up and I
> tried to access it I was told it was not accessible. I've never had this
> issue before with a drive so I assume it is because it is the boot drive
> of a server? Perhaps it is encrypted in some way? My question is: Is the
> only way to access this drive now to reformat it thereby losing the
> contents?
>
> JW

In the following description, my assumption is this is a ribbon cable
IDE drive, otherwise known as "PATA" in these groups.

1) Connect the drive to an internal drive connector inside your
desktop computer. Take note of the original jumper settings.
Change the jumper settings, to be consistent with any other
device connected to the same ribbon cable. If using a ribbon cable
that has no drives connected, use the end connector preferably, not
the middle one. (If you need help with the notion of Master/Slave/Cable Select,
please post back.)

2) The drive will have some brand on it, like Seagate or Western Digital.
Go to the web site, and download a diagnostic program. I have Seagate
drives, and I have a floppy with Seatools For DOS on it. I can run that
floppy, and test my drives. The diagnostic will tell you if the drive is
working.

If using an external USB enclosure, make sure the jumpering is correct.
My USB enclosure has stamped right on the ribbon cable itself "use Master
Mode". So if I want to place a PATA hard drive into a USB enclosure,
I change the jumper to be Master from whatever it used to be.

I hope your problem is just jumpering, but time will tell.

Once you've solved the hardware problem, the next issue will
be "Take Ownership". That is the search term to use, to allow
a foreign Windows computer, to look at the contents of a
Windows disk. Alternately, you can use a modern Linux LiveCD,
to examine Windows drives, as Linux handles both FAT32 and NTFS
now. Linux may not handle all the features of NTFS (might not
do the right thing for EFS encrypted files, alternate streams,
compression), but for basic file manipulation, it works fine.
I use it all the time, when I want to do things "behind Window's
back".

Another reason for a USB enclosure to fail, is not having
sufficient power to spin up the drive. But the odds of that
happening are pretty slim, as you'd have already noticed by
now, if your USB enclosure was a dog.

Paul
From: Gerard Bok on 16 Jan 2010 07:36
On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:16:22 -0800, "Jerry West" <jw(a)comcast.net>
wrote:

>I pulled a HD from a failed Windows Server 2000 machine today.

Any chance the drive was set to dynamic ?

>Wanting to
>access the contents of the drive I hooked it up to a USB 2.0 to IDE adapter
>and plugged it into my USB port.

Sometimes you need to fiddle with the master / slave / CS
jumpers.

>Perhaps it is encrypted in some way?

Could also be the case. If there is an ATA password on the drive.
There is a tool around that can tell you if the drive is password
protected. (Not sure, but it could well be ATApwd.zip by Alex
Mina, your Google is as good as mine :-)

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok
From: Jerry West on 17 Jan 2010 18:09
Is it possible to switch the jumpers on the fly versus rebooting each time I
do so?

JW

"Bryce" <none(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:hio2ur$n68$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> Jerry West wrote:
>
>> I pulled a HD from a failed Windows Server 2000 machine
>> today. Wanting to access the contents of the drive I
>> hooked it up to a USB 2.0 to IDE adapter and plugged it
>> into my USB port. When the drive came up and I tried to
>> access it I was told it was not accessible. I've never had
>> this issue before with a drive so I assume it is because
>> it is the boot drive of a server? Perhaps it is encrypted
>> in some way? My question is: Is the only way to access
>> this drive now to reformat it thereby losing the contents?
>>
>> JW
>
> I suppose we should not rule out the possibility that a hard
> drive taken from a failed server might be dead.
>
> I don't know why a server's boot drive would need encryption
> any more than a data disk, but I suppose it doesn't hurt as
> long as the performance hit is tolerable. If your disk is
> indeed encrypted, the game is over.
>
> You didn't say what o/s you are using to attempt to read it.
> I'll guess some flavor of windows. Why not download a linux
> live-cd and try that? Puppy linux runs completely from ram
> and can read (and write) ntfs files.
>
> Bryce

 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2
Prev: Question about LGA 775 cooler backplate adhesive tape.
Next: Power Supply fan stopped blowing!