Accessing 2.5" HDD

[Pique318]

Hi all,

The motherboard (I believe it is anyway) dies on my laptop recently...oh joy!! I 'had' a backup that was accidently erased and so I thought I'd pop the HD and see if I could access it.
I bought a caddy with a USB connection and slotted it in. I then connected it to my Vista machine but it doesn't appear on the list of drives and I'm confused. The usermanual just tells you how to connect it and no more.
Is there an application that will try to read this HD ? It may be corrupt, I don't know. The OS is on it along with loads of music and (more importantly) photos. Would the presence of an OS impede my efforts to access the data ?

TIA,

PK

 

[mathepac]

By "caddy" do you mean an external drive enclosure?

If so, does it have its own power supply and can you see lights / leds on or flickering to indicate that power is reaching the enclosure?

AFAIK, I'm not a Vista expert TG, you may need to set jumpers at the back of the 2.5" HDD itself to indicate to the system BIOS that this is a "slave"drive. There should be a label on the drive itself to tell you how to do this (these settings are not generic and vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but they will be listed on the manufacturer's website).

 

[Pique318]

By "caddy" do you mean an external drive enclosure?

Yes.

If so, does it have its own power supply and can you see lights / leds on or flickering to indicate that power is reaching the enclosure?

It's powered by the PC and yes, lights are on and flickering.

you may need to set jumpers at the back of the 2.5" HDD itself to indicate to the system BIOS that this is a "slave"drive.

Ahh good point, never though f that, will check it out. Thanks !!