Old HDD Not Accessible In Windows But Causes Error 55 And Other Behaviors

[nick name]

So I have an old HDD (molex, IDE, Master/Slave jumper) that I wrote "not broken" on last time I messed with it, but that was years ago.  Drive powers up and I use an IDE to USB cable (verified working), but I can't see the drive in Windows with any utility (Explorer, Drive Manager, Diskpart).  The odd thing is that the HDD does cause weird behaviors with the PC and also that Error 55 when trying to restart the PC with the drive plugged in.  And that error is assigned to F: which would be the appropriate letter if I could see the drive in Windows.   

 

The weird behaviors with the drive plugged are: very long POST followed by the keyboard and mouse not working once I get to the Windows login screen and the drive making Windows take forever to restart, ultimately causing that BSOD as it tries.  

 

I've tried to google this but I don't have a good search term or phrase yet and was hoping for a jump start from someone please.  Goal is to fix the HDD if possible.

[Kilrah]

Try a different PC / IDE interface as a start.

[nick name]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Try a different PC / IDE interface as a start.

Can you elaborate please?  I don't know that I understand what you mean.  

[Kilrah]

That maybe your USB-IDE interface is the problem, so try another one and if you can try putting the drive in an old PC that actually has native IDE.

If it still doesn't work then the drive has likely gone bad.

[nick name]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

That maybe your USB-IDE interface is the problem, so try another one and if you can try putting the drive in an old PC that actually has native IDE.

If it still doesn't work then the drive has likely gone bad.

Ok I thought that was what you meant.  I can use the USB to IDE adapter with another HDD successfully and don't have another PC to try.  

 

And while the drive is definitely bad to some degree the error it throws leads me to believe it might not be a mechanical problem and can be fixed through software.  

[Kilrah]

If it was just a filesystem error yes, but 

 

  

17 hours ago, nick name said:

The weird behaviors with the drive plugged are: very long POST followed by the keyboard and mouse not working once I get to the Windows login screen and the drive making Windows take forever to restart, ultimately causing that BSOD as it tries.  

 

suggests that while the mechanics might be OK the controller board might be on the way out.

[nick name]

6 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

If it was just a filesystem error yes, but 

 

  

 

suggests that while the mechanics might be OK the controller board might be on the way out.

Yeah, you're right.