Member Avatar for manchurianCEO

I got an ubuntu cd time ago and it said it was a bootable CD so I tried it out. It ended up installing in my machine somehow and I tried to search for my pictures and other files with no result.

I took the hard drive out and put it in an external enclosure (it's an ide hard drive and couldn't make it a slave on my other comp. which runs windows xp) but when I turn the enclosure on, the hard drive is not recognized by my working computer. It does not even acknowledge the enclosure being connected to a USB port.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mah300274

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Both hardware and data-level causes are plausible here; and pointed to different possibilities that are worth checking in sequence. Start by separating the detection problem from any data-recovery work so that no further writes happen to the drive.

Check the enclosure and connections first. Many 3.5" IDE (PATA) drives require an external 12V power supply and will not spin from USB alone. Verify the enclosure has its power brick and that the drive spins and its activity LED lights. Try a different USB cable and port, watch Windows' Device Manager for any new "Unknown USB Device," and check Disk Management for an uninitialized disk. If the enclosure shows no power/spin or the drive clicks, suspect a hardware or power fault — test with a different known-good enclosure or connect the drive temporarily to a desktop IDE port with the jumper set to Master/Cable Select.

If the drive is powered and seen by BIOS or a Linux live system, gather non-destructive info and image before attempting recovery. Useful commands from a Linux live session:

sudo fdisk -l
lsblk -f
sudo blkid
sudo mount -o ro /dev/sdXY /mnt
sudo ddrescue /dev/sdX drive.img ddrescue.log
sudo testdisk /dev/sdX
sudo photorec /dev/sdX

fdisk/lsblk/blkid reveal partition types (NTFS vs ext4). If an NTFS partition exists, mount read-only or use ntfs-3g to copy files. If partitions were overwritten or the partition table was damaged, testdisk can often restore it; photorec can carve files if structure is lost. If bad sectors are present, clone with ddrescue and work from the image to avoid further damage.

Do not initialize, format, or accept prompts in Windows Disk Management to "initialize" the disk — that will destroy recoverable partition metadata. If the drive fails to spin, clicks repeatedly, or shows severe hardware faults, stop and consider a professional data-recovery service rather than further DIY attempts.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

problem with the ubuntu cd is it is bootable ,but also installable ,seem like you made the mistake of installing it ,and it wiped out your windows and all the file on it ,and changed the file system to linux ,and now it not recognizable ,in windows ,i think you need to hook back in the computer and look for linux software to recover files ,good luck

Edited by caperjack because: n/a
Member Avatar for mah300274

You could have installed alongside with it... try to look for your partition of the drive (C) maybe find your old system; you may have not installed grub when it asked...

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