Hard drive not detecting on Win7Closed

Question

Hello, 
i have a Sony 1TB external HDD. Suddenly it stopped showing up in explorer. then i followed the below steps
Click on Start --> Run --> type regedt and click on OK
Registry Editor will be opened
First backup your registry by going to File --> Export
Then expand the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967- E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
If you see any upperfilter or lowerfilters entries at the right side, simply delete them.
Close the registry and restart your PC.

But after doing these steps, my laptop did not started. Later my IT person said my laptop HDD got faulty. Now i have 2 not responding HDD. One of Sony external HDD and second WD internal HDD with win7 installed in it. 
i have a huge data on both the HDD. 
Please help me getting either of it working.

BrianGreen · Answer

The reason your machine wont boot is probably because you changed the registry settings and not a hard drive failure as long as the machine failed to boot straight after you made this change.

Can you get to the advanced Boot menu? (keep tapping the [F8] key as soon as you switch on the machine and hopefully a screen of advanced boot options will appear). If you get this, using the arrow keys choose "Last known working configuration" (or words very similar). Hopefully it will boot, but the first time not as fast as usual. If this doesnt work restart and do the [F8]  thing again and try "Safe Mode". If this works, then hopefully you can try rebooting in normal mode. Then if you are working good :^)

If the restart doesnt work, then try safe mode again and try to do a system restore to a time before you made the changes.

If you can not get safe mode to work, then try this:

Download and burn of a copy of Hiren's Boot CD from:

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Boot from Hiren's CD. (you need to have the CD/DVD drive set as the primary boot drive in BIOS or use the one off boot menu - your PC instructions should tell you which key. often its the [F10] or [F12] key).

Select the "Mini-XP" boot option and you get a Windows Xp enviroment to work with. 

Using Explorer navigate to the c:\Windows\system32\config.

Rename the following files (dont touch any with extensions)
DEFAULT
SAM
SECURITY
SOFTWARE
SYSTEM
I recommend that you rename these five files to default.old, sam.old, security.old, software.old, system.old.

Then go to the Regback folder (inside the folder where these other files are) and find the same five files. Copy all 5 over to the config folder, as is. Dont just move them. Now take out the CD and restart the computer.

Hopefully you will have a working machine.

Please let me know how you get on.

I really appreciate thank you messages as a payment for solving issues   :o)

KY_WD · Answer

Hello all,

Brian, that was my thought too, but untill I post my post, you've answered first. :)
The registry edition always hides many risks of damaging the system, that's why it's not recommended as a first solution to a recognition problem. Nevertheless, I think there could be a chance to rescue the data.
1. Let's first start with your Sony drive, shall we? :)
Try to connect it to another PC to see if it will be seen there and if gain any access to it. Also, you could try connecting it with a different USB cable. 
2. Almost the same I would recommend you to do with your internal hard drive. Is your PC a desktop or it's a laptop one? If it's a laptop, you can pull out the drive and connect it to another computer via SATA-USB cable. There you could extract your data.
Another way to reach your internal drive no matter if it's a desktop or a laptop one, is to make a Linux Live CD/USB and again try to access the drive through it. Once the CD/USB has been created, you have to change the BIOS boot priority to USB or CD, depending where you would boot from.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted. Good luck.

Chetan.Bhavsar · Answer

Dear Both,

Thanks for your respective post. 

Dear BrianGreen, i tried your solutions and here are the results ..
i did tried booting up my laptop internal HDD on different PC's and laptop in Safe Mode. But it did not booted. It did not booted neither in Safe Mode nor in normal mode. 

Then i did tried ur second option of booting from Hirenboot CD. i did succeed in booting up the Win XP environment. But now the problem is in explorer there is no C: drive. It shows the drives like, (B:) RamDrive, (D:) HBCD 15.2 and (X:) Mini XP.

So now i am stucked here. 

Dear KY_WD. I did tried changing the connecting Cable and different PC's. I am using Laptop with Win7

Thanks,
Chetan

Chetan.Bhavsar · Answer

Dear Both,

its a Bad luck. i did tried all the possible solutions.

But the basic problem is either of my HDD (Sony & laptop's) are not getting detected on any other machine. i did tried connecting as Slave HDD, ITE cable connector or all together inserting the disks into some other laptops.

Nevertheless, i did handed over the my personal Sony HDD to Stellar India. (https://www.stellarinfo.co.in/

Lets hope for the best. 

Thanks a ton for the help so far. !!!

God may bless both of you.

Thanks,
Chetan

Hard drive not detecting on Win7

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