External HDD Problem

[Aaron McCotton]

Greetings people of the internet!

 

I have a problem with my HDD.

 

I used to used an HDD as my internal drive, and I use windows 10. But then, I decide to swap my HDD to SSD as my internal drive. So, I bought some cheap HDD case with sata-to-USB interface to make my HDD as my external drive. I didn't change the partition inside my HDD at all. It still has a bootable operating system (Win10) in it. But when I try to connect it to any PC (as external drive), the operating system (I've tried WinXP, Win7 and Win10) can't display the partition but detected as removable hardware (the device logo in the system tray popped up). On Ubuntu however, the drive is displayed but I can't access them since it's NTFS (ubuntu won't let me access it). But, when I use the HDD as an internal drive it works properly on any PC. Is the problem because it still has a bootable operating system in the HDD?

 

 

Your impromptu help will very much appreciated. Thank you.

[DiamondShark286]

probably not because of the os on it. try putting your ssd in the usb to sata adapter and see if it works could be a poorly made external drive bay

[Aaron McCotton]

Just now, Tb428 said:

probably not because of the os on it. try putting your ssd in the usb to sata adapter and see if it works could be a poorly made external drive bay

No. I've tried use another HDD and it works fine. I don't think its the HDD sata-to-usb adapter problem.

[DiamondShark286]

Just now, Aaron McCotton said:

No. I've tried use another HDD and it works fine. I don't think its the HDD sata-to-usb adapter problem.

can you boot from the hdd in the sata to usb adapter

[DnFx91]

5 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

can you boot from the hdd in the sata to usb adapter

you can't boot windows through USB guys, only with windows-to-go is this possible. a normal installation will just bluescreen if u try boot it through USB "inaccessible boot device"

[Aaron McCotton]

2 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

can you boot from the hdd in the sata to usb adapter

Yes I can boot from the HDD but it immediately crash (BSOD) before the welcome screen appears. I've tried twice but it gave me the same result.

[Aaron McCotton]

1 minute ago, DnFx91 said:

you can't boot windows through USB guys, only with windows-to-go is this possible. a normal installation will just bluescreen if u try boot it through USB "inaccessible boot device"

Yes you're right. It crashed. I've tried twice and it gave me the same result. So is there anything that I can do to make it accessible using windows operating system?

[DiamondShark286]

Just now, Aaron McCotton said:

Yes I can boot from the HDD but it immediately crash (BSOD) before the welcome screen appears. I've tried twice but it gave me the same result.

well that makes sense from what @DnFx91 said but that means the computer can detect the data on the drive so it must be windows if you can put the hdd back in the laptop and you have another hdd you could copy your data to that hdd then reformat the drive. You probably could see the data in any other os that supports ntfs windows probably just hates the windows boot partion on the drive.

[DnFx91]

Just now, Aaron McCotton said:

Yes you're right. It crashed. I've tried twice and it gave me the same result. So is there anything that I can do to make it accessible using windows operating system?

nope, i have spent a long time trying to do this before myself and concluded it is not possible or just above my skillset. That HDD will only boot through SATA if it was installed through SATA. 

 

An idea i have had before is to make a windows to go workspace, then switch out the new empty NTFS partition with one that you want, via cloning etc... 

[Aaron McCotton]

4 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

well that makes sense from what @DnFx91 said but that means the computer can detect the data on the drive so it must be windows if you can put the hdd back in the laptop and you have another hdd you could copy your data to that hdd then reformat the drive. You probably could see the data in any other os that supports ntfs windows probably just hates the windows boot partion on the drive.

So you suggest that I should copy all the data in my HDD to another storage and then format it?

[DnFx91]

2 minutes ago, Tb428 said:

well that makes sense from what @DnFx91 said but that means the computer can detect the data on the drive so it must be windows if you can put the hdd back in the laptop and you have another hdd you could copy your data to that hdd then reformat the drive. You probably could see the data in any other os that supports ntfs windows probably just hates the windows boot partion on the drive.

yeah man, the benefit is that an NTFS partition is still just an NTFS partition whether it's bootable or not. so yeah there's nothing stopping you from plugging that drive into linux and mounting the NTFS partition then copying what you want. If you dont have linux, you can use a USB adapter on windows, but you might need to assign a drive letter to the NTFS partition from disk management.

[Aaron McCotton]

2 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

nope, i have spent a long time trying to do this before myself and concluded it is not possible or just above my skillset. That HDD will only boot through SATA if it was installed through SATA. 

 

An idea i have had before is to make a windows to go workspace, then switch out the new empty NTFS partition with one that you want, via cloning etc... 

Oh yeah I think that'll do. Thank you, mate.

[Aaron McCotton]

1 minute ago, DnFx91 said:

yeah man, the benefit is that an NTFS partition is still just an NTFS partition whether it's bootable or not. so yeah there's nothing stopping you from plugging that drive into linux and mounting the NTFS partition then copying what you want. If you dont have linux, you can use a USB adapter on windows, but you might need to assign a drive letter to the NTFS partition from disk management.

But I've tried to plug the HDD into ubuntu but somehow ubuntu won't allowed me to access the partition.