# Cannot access external hard drive via USB adapter in Win 8.1



## marymagdalene (Dec 13, 2013)

Hi all, here's my problem:

I recently bought a new Lenovo laptop after spilling a little water in the touchpad/keyboard of my old Toshiba Satellite. I think it fried the Satellite's keyboard as I couldn't get the keyboard to respond and the computer was stuck in BIOS mode. As far as I know, the broken laptop's hard drive had no water damage. I took apart the whole thing and inspected everything and there was no water inside the machine (imagine my disappointment when it was dry inside but still broken...)

Anyway, I bought a USB to IDE/SATA adapter with the hope of recovering the data from the broken laptop. Unfortunately I cannot get Windows 8.1 to access the hard drive. It registers the drive in Device Manager and says it's working properly, but no autorun will pop up when plugged in. I checked in Computer Management -> Storage which also shows the drive, but when right clicking it, every single option is greyed out except Help. I can't assign a drive letter, open it, explore it, etc.. 

The drive is listed as Healthy (GPT Protective Partition). The drive also had a Windows 8.1 install on it. It's a 750gb Hitachi SATA drive.

I tried using the adapter on ANOTHER Toshiba Satellite (not the broken one - a slightly different model) which is running Windows 8 (not 8.1) and I get the exact same problem - device shows up in device and storage manager, says it's healthy, but again, every single option is greyed out and I can't browse any of the folders or access it in any meaningful way. Before anyone asks, yes, the adapter is hooked up properly and powered.

Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I Googled 20 different search terms but I'm coming up empty handed. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!


----------



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Did you try setting the bios and try to boot off the "bad" drive? If it works, just copy the info you need onto another backup device. Reinstall the info on your new HD after rebooting. You can change your boot order back, but it isn't essential as long as no USB device is plugged in.


----------



## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

If Corday's solution doesn't work with the drive attached via USB, then first try Partition Find and Mount. 
If this fails then you can try to recover your files using the free TestDisk Program. I have had the best luck with GetDataBack. You need another drive of the same size or larger to restore your files to.


----------

