Accessing sata drive from ubuntu with SATA to USB adapter only gives brief connection to HDD

[smvog555]

Hi all,

I'd like to ask for some help. I'm trying to use my linux computer to get my files off of a hardrive which may or may not be damaged.
I'm new to Unix based OS as of the past few months have been getting experience from a project at work, however skill set is limited.
I'm going to try to describe my situation clearly in the short sections below so you will (hopefully) know what my problem is and where I am at.
My problem:

• 
  My laptop recently crashed and I cannot boot from it any more.(windows 7 computer)
  I tried using using a USB boot of pmagic and although it saw the hard drive it recieved read errors at each address location.

Purposed Solution:

• 
  I purchased a SATA to USB adapter from Micro Center. I have a desktop which is running Ubuntu 14.04 and I want to copy the files off of my laptops HDD into my external hard drive using my Ubuntu machine.

Questions:

• 
  Do I need to mount the drive I removed from my laptop in Ubuntu to copy the files?
  
  When I connect the SATA drive to my Ubuntu computer I can browse directories for a moment before I seem to lose my connection. I'm not sure if the drive is damadged or not, maybe my laptops memory controller was damadged. Maybe I damadged it while trying to acess it using PMagic? Does any one have any suggestions for what I should try next at this pont?

Thanks, any help is very much appreciated. I have a lot of irreplaceable files which are important to me.

Sam

 

[photonboy]

Try the USB hard drive on a different computer.

However, since it gets accessed but then the connection is broken it sounds almost certain that the drive is damaged.

*Your best bet is to use EASEUS data recovery wizard (Free to see if it's even possible, but may need Pro). Then:

1) Create EASEUS boot disc
2) Require another hard drive with sufficient space to store recovered data (but for now if you don't have that run without just to see if files can be found)

3) Boot to the EASEUS disc and have it scan your damaged drive (takes hours).

*If possible, mount the old drive directly with SATA, not through USB.

4) If files are found, have it copy over to the 2nd drive.

Other:
I tried about TEN programs a couple years ago and for me only EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard worked. I had a Seagate 2TB drive and it wasn't even showing up in wizard or even some of the data recovery programs.

The drive was failing but I still got all my data off of it.

 

[smvog555]

Try the USB hard drive on a different computer.

However, since it gets accessed but then the connection is broken it sounds almost certain that the drive is damaged.

*Your best bet is to use EASEUS data recovery wizard (Free to see if it's even possible, but may need Pro). Then:

1) Create EASEUS boot disc
2) Require another hard drive with sufficient space to store recovered data (but for now if you don't have that run without just to see if files can be found)

3) Boot to the EASEUS disc and have it scan your damaged drive (takes hours).

.

Hi, thanks for the reply!

When you say, 'try the USB hard drive on a different computer, your refering to the SATA drive connected to the USB adapter right?

Your suggesting that I put the hard drive back in my laptop and boot it with EASEUS?
I was thinking maybe the hardware in my laptop became faulty. The plastic enclosure has broken a bit at the hinge, which I was thinking might have opened the door for issues with the hardware bumping around inside of the case or soemthing.
So if the hardware in my computer is broken, then EASEUS with not work for me if booted from my laptop right? I suppose I can boot EASEUS from a USB on my Linux machine also.

I can find out if there is any way I can connect the hard drive in question to an available port in my desktop rather than USB. (I bought it from my companies IT guy so he can answer my questions about that since I don't know much about computers)

I will try using EASEUS as you suggest, are there any other options you or anyone may recomend for diagnosing or accessing my data usinng my current setup with the SATA to USB? I've rad about using DD in ther terminal. Are there any other packages I can install which can help me in linux?

Thanks