Can't find files on laptop hard drive in new enclosure

[Bert Winters]

Just removed a working hard drive from old laptop, put it in an enclosure and hooked it up.

The drive reads as Recovery, and after unhiding the files there is nothing there that resembles the old file system. How the heck do I back up my old info?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @Bert Winters!

I'd recommend you try connecting the HDD internally to a desktop internally, if you have access to one. Another way to see if you would be able to access the data externally is to connect the laptop HDD via a SATA-to-USB cable. Some enclosures are configured with different LBAs which could cause such issues when trying to read or access data from a previously used as internal HDD. As soon as you can access your files, make sure you back them up somewhere else!
I'd also advise you go to Disk Management and check how the drive is recognized there. Posting some screenshots would be really helpful as well. Have you tried accessing your files through the enclosure on another computer as well?

Keep me posted. Hope this helps you.
SuperSoph_WD